Monday 17 March 2014

Blast of Tempest

so when i bought blue exorcist on sale i also got blast of tempest which was a decent price... not as cheap as blue exorcist but i really enjoyed the show and yeah... 12-13 episodes for around 50 bucks is within my threshold of reasonable prices... even though it's sub only, has no extras and minimal packaging.

Rewatching the show was great, it's like if the themes of  Hamlet and the tempest had a baby that just happened to be an anime. it still kills me that essentially 4 episodes consists of them standing around and talking and it works perfectly.
The music is great.
the Animation is stunning (though if nothing else everything aniplex touches tends to be pretty)

Though theres this sense of foreboding deja-vu... and it took me a while to figure out why.

Still i wanna talk abotu the show before i talk about why i feelon edge.

The show is hard to describe so i'll just say Yoshino and Mahiro get dragged into a situation simply because of one 'co-incidence' that connects them to the larger plot. in the end will it be like hamlet or the tempest?
Also that love sucks and Shakespeare is a bit of an ass. 

I love the character designs, i love how the plot is ever evolving (even though that's why it's so hard to sum up) i am really happy i own this but.... i have to talk about the DVD.

So when you first put it in, it immediately goes into the show.... i know some people prefer this but i like it going to a menu first since i often just want one ep at a time... and besides going into the show immediate give off this almost amateur feeling... considering it's what dvds used to do when they were first made and people didn't know what was the best format.

When you do get to the menu it's pretty bare bones.
Play
Chapters
Subtitles on/off.

on the first disk of each set you also get extras which consist of Textless songs and trailers.

Now had this been my first Aniplex dvd i would have just thought "okay so menu design isn't their strong suit" but it's not.
Blue exorcist has some pretty nice Menu design, it's interesting to look at and has great music as well as having a fairly nice layout... also it goes to the menu before playing the show.

you know who else massively downgraded their menu design and completely cut out special features? Geneon and ADV.
How do i know this is a downgrade?
Blue exorcist came out a few years ago (i would guess 2009 or 2010...)
Blast of tempest just released... like... the second half had been out for less then a month.

The songs also do not have romanji or english translations either... again a bit of a downgrade considering blue exorcist did. Now this always pisses me off cause when i buy a dvd i want the songs translated cause it adds another layer to the show but hey... whatever.

But still theres more.
The first half has a nice almost metallic pattern on the disk... but the second half just repeats those same patterns minus the metallic.
it just feels like cost saving measures to me... which is "fine" (except the not translating everything... that just feels lazy) but it is the same kind of stuff i have seen two other companies do... and those companies aren't around anymore... and the fact that they price their stuff well out of the market... yeah that doesn't help. 

Do i think aniplex is in trouble? not really, they are a huge company with a lot of great shows and considering the foothold they have in japan they are not going anywhere... i just wont be surprised if they pull a Bandai and give up on the north american market and let other companies like NISA license everything. The problem is that their pricing model is not viable in a north american market... and fun fact, cutting corners while keeping your price the same is not the best way to make money.

But the question is... is the show worth it?dvd quality aside

that depends...
For the 75+ per 13 eps suggested retail price.... no, absolutely not... never
for the 50-60 sale price most people are selling for... maybe... watch it on crunchyroll for free first and then decided.
if possible wait for it to drop to 40-50 cause... well a sub only show with no special features and minimal packaging tends to go for that much in our current market so it would be unfair to expect less.. however aniplex doens't tend to drop their prices... so you may be waiting a while. 

I do love this show though... I'm just curious to see if this leads anywhere... or if i'm worrying over nothing.

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