[merylsilverburg]

Originally Posted by kupoartist

One possibility I haven't yet considered with Anime DVDs is that Europe shares Region 2 encoding with Japan. Heck knows why, but if anyone knows any decent (and at least reasonably legiable to someone who can't read Japanese) Retailers that will ship Japanese DVDs to Europe, I'd like to hear. Seems to me that Japanese DVDs come with English Subtitles as standard - it's a shame to loose the dub, because I usually watch that version first (regardless of quality), simply because its a shame to destroy the artistic vision with lines of text on the bottom of the screen, but it's something I could live with.

For some reason, I read somewhere that Europe was Region 3 while Japan was Region 2. I guess wherever I read that from was wrong. Anyway, yeah, getting some R2 DVDs are pretty cool but the problem is with regular anime series/movies (except Ghibli), there aren't subtitles at all. Only Ghibli films come with subtitles otherwise everything else doesn't have any (man, if they did, I'd be stocking up like there's no tommorow! ). I would really recommend you get R2 Ghibli films because the quality is much better and I think the subtitles are more accurate too (Mononoke-hime's US subtitles were very accurate only because I think they asked Neil Gaiman to do the translation). I tried to watch the US version of "Kiki's Delivery Service" and the subtitles didn't seem to match up with what they were saying. But maybe it's just me. ^^;;;

Originally Posted by kupoartist

I may just look into the Samurai X films... theres a nice Region 2 box-set of "The Motion Picture", "Trust", "Betrayal" and "Reflection" which just got released.

These aren't really "films" but more like OVA series (Original Video Animation)...the Samurai X ones are actually more like a prequel to the TV series, so I guess you can see these on its own...after all, many like the OVAs more than the TV. But, if you are considering watching the TV series one day (which I highly recommend you do 'cause the TV is pretty darn good as well...though it's long and animation quality suffers at some parts), I strongly recommend you do not watch "Reflection" until after you finish the TV. "Reflections" is considered the absolute final ending to the Kenshin saga (and might I say, the worst ending...they should've just did the manga ending instead!) and if you're the type of person who likes to watch things in order, then save "Reflections" for last. But, if you don't mind, then watching all three would be good.

Originally Posted by kupoartist

Finally, Back to Ghibli. According to the site which sells the Region 1 versions, US releases of Nausicaa, Totoro and Porco Rosso aren't until August the 31st. I'm pretty sure that they're planning on releasing a whole load of the Ghibli Back-Catalogue. I for one want to check out "Grave of the Fireflies", because i've heard its really powerful...

Thanks for the release dates...though I thought "Totoro" was already released in US (a long time ago around 1999/2000, the same time "Kiki" was released but it was put under "Children's" category)? Well anyway, "Grave of the Fireflies" is supposed to be a very excellent film, probably Takahata's best directed work. It's very sad/depressing though, which is why I refuse to see it.