Mylene wrote:

That said, the Japanese imports really aren't all that expensive, especially compared to normal Japanese CD prices.  When you split out the price by the number of CDs, you're paying ~$13 per CD--and you get a booklet and neat artbox with it.  I'm not sure how much cheaper Right Stuf would be able to make it, plus they would have to negotiate yet another license agreement, since the music is copyrighted by JA Seazer, etc.

This. I imported the CD set from Japan as well, and it is completely worth it, and I had the 4 American CDs already as well. I don't see how an American release could be any cheaper, really. $130 for a 10CD set is a great deal any way you slice it. That's how much I paid at YesAsia when it was released in 2008.

If you really enjoy the music from the series, importing the music box set is really a no-brainer if you have the funds. Ordering from Japan isn't as scary as it sounds.

I can only hope this version will be more properly done,  the DVDs I got of the Utena series had errors in some of the menus and the discs themselves had errors occur most notably during Episode 39.

I should have read more carefully before but does this mean that they will redub it?

Tamago wrote:

I can only hope this version will be more properly done,  the DVDs I got of the Utena series had errors in some of the menus and the discs themselves had errors occur most notably during Episode 39.

I should have read more carefully before but does this mean that they will redub it?

Disk 5 of the set that I have has errors that lead to me feeling very displaced during the leadup to the final arc. :S Basically if I try to choose an episode from the menu list, the episode that plays is not the one listed. Basically on my first time through the series I ended up watching 31, "Her Tragedy" instead of 27 "Nanami's Egg" thanks to mislabeled episodes. Let me just say that watching "Nanami's Egg" after that lost a lot of the possible charm. I basically have a notepad sheet that is all the episodes on that disk and the order of the links I have to click to watch it in order. Yet another reason I can't wait for this boxset.


To my knowledge they're just using the CPM dub instead of redubbing it.

I would really adore a re-dub, if only so that we could get some different VA's for the secondary characters instead of re-using the main characters voices.  I wouldn't at all mind Freeman, Rachel Lillis, Dan Green and others coming back to reprise their roles, but I would love to see some newer, younger vocal talent for Saionji, Ruka, Kozue, Juri and especially Miki and Tsuwabuki and someone with some actual talent for Anthy and Akio.  Don't get me wrong, Jack Taylor is an awesome, crazy-unique VA, but he just plain does not sound like a teenager, or even a 20-something.  It would be awesome to have the original Japaneese, original English dub and a new English dub to select from. 

allegoriest wrote:

I second that.


But for the love of christ, get someone else for Ruka. Oh god that was BAD.

And no more ten-jew.

Stupid Ten-Jew Dub.

Or OOH!-tena.

There definitely will not be a redub, unfortunately.  Nozomi hasn't done a new dub on anything for years, in large part because they release niche titles, and the cost of dubbing is ridiculously high. As much as we love SKU and will all buy it, it's not exactly going to be a hot seller.  They wouldn't recoup their losses if they took the time to redub it.  But I think we can expect a high-quality release in every other aspect.

allegoriest wrote:

Stupid Ten-Jew Dub.

ILY. More and more reason I'm glad I've only sparingly heard the dub (switched over to it for two seconds just to hear Utena's english voice). I had to for the movie though thanks to wonky subtitles during the duels and the whole Utena!Car scene, then would switch back to the Japanese track when the subtitles came back. I'm not a fan of dub Juri >:C

I've never heard dub Akio, but I can already say no one could equal Japanese Akio at all, same with Japanese Anthy. I get tempted to watch the dub of Wakaba's duel episode just to see how it sounds in English, but her japanese actress just pulls off that scene so *perfectly* that I don't think the dub could ever top that. (Is it obvious yet that this really is one of my favorite episodes of the whole series? )

Last edited by Calamity (07-06-2010 07:31:07 PM)

Tamago wrote:

It's a shame they cannot redo the dub but at least we can hear it in Japanese, the subtitles needs to be improved and made easier to read no matter what the background the subtitles are displaying.

Nozomi has become quite adept at providing easy to read subtitles, so this should not be an issue. They also know that we all ("we" being anime fans in general) loathe hardsubs and overlays, so those are things that they never do.

Oh, and as far as extras?  Check this out. We have nothing to fear. This release is going to be amazing. Trust Nozomi on this one.

kk, thread sticked guys! The announcement isn't permanent, I'll put it up in a rotation every other week or so, since we will use the announcements for other things from time to time. I took down some of the older sticks that aren't really moving anymore...although I'm really sad to see the novels not getting translated.

I'm seeing a lot of new forum registrations lately, I hope it's people from cons hearing about the SKU rerelease and coming over, and not more spammers.

For the curious, who may be wondering what kinds of series Nozomi licenses and who their customer base is, here's a nearly complete list of the series which they have licensed over the years:

Aria
Astro Boy (1963)
Boogiepop Phantom
Boys Be...
Comic Party
Dirty Pair TV
El Hazard
Emma
Gakuen Alice
Gravitation
His and Her Circumstances (Kare Kano)
Junjo Romantica
Kimba
Lost Universe
Maria Watches Over Us (Marimite)
Ninja Nonsense
Piano
Rental Magica
Shingu
Starship Girl Yamamoto Yohko OVAs
Super Gals
The Third: The Girl With The Blue Eye
To Heart
Toward The Terra
Irresponsible Captain Tylor

...and of course at AX they just announced their acquisitions of Utena and Sora no Woto.

(No, I don't work for Nozomi, but after having added six of their shows to my collection over the years, they consistently set the high bar of what to expect from a good anime release, and I've always been very happy with their output, especially in today's environment where the anime bubble of the mid 2000s has burst, and releases like Bandai/Kadokawa's of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya are mostly a thing of the past.)

Last edited by Imaginary Bad Bug (07-07-2010 10:15:39 AM)

I've owned my beloved Boogiepop since I think it was 2001 and I never actually noticed that it was Nozomi that released it. That's the only thing I own by them but the boxset is very nicely put together and the extra content on it (commentary, some neat little art videos put together that feature music from the series, and trailers for the other discs in the set) are a treat. They also included a nice little extra disc that contains two versions of Wagner's "Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg" that is worked into the series (and because I'm a dork, the version Boogiepop Phantom whistles throughout the series is actually my ringtone).

The point of my little ramble is just input to the fact that I am satisfied with the one piece of Nozomi release I do own.

I most certainly will once I get home from work (probably in an hour or so, I'll edit this post once I get it uploaded)!

Is your phone capable of using MP3s as ringtones, dear? That's the format I have so I'll just upload mine when I get in if yours can.

ETA: Here is the download, enjoy:

https://www.yousendit.com/dl?phi_action … SlEwTVE9PQ

You can enjoy the same situation whenever my phone rings around other people: "WHO IS WHISTLING?!" "Oh that's just my phone..."


Since I know a bunch of you are BP and SKU fans I have to state this regarding the dub: I fucking love Nagi so very much and feel that Rachael did an amazing job as her, so when I was looking over the SKU dub cast I was mighty excited to find out that she voiced Utena as well. Crispin is kind of a given for excitement cause he does an amazing job in whatever he does, I believe there's someone else that the BP and SKU characters share, but I can't remember it off the top of my head.  Basically Rachael and Crispin's involvement is the only reason I'd ponder the SKU dub, but it does make me happy in the very least that two of my favorite animes share a few similar cast members, even if I never watch the SKU dub.

I'm rambling, just really happy that I have SKU and BP fans in the same place.

Last edited by Calamity (07-07-2010 04:40:37 PM)

OH DEAR JESUS GOD YES. I was hoping for a redub, but yeah, not likely. It would HAVE to be better than the CPM dub(which is not entirely CPM's fault, since no one really knew what the hell they were doing with dubbing in the nineties). And I'd hope we'd have enough of a CRAZY FANBASE that releasing a bunch of stuff would be more worth it. I mean, I kind of doubt there are fans of, say, Tenchi Muyo that are this obsessed and willing to shell out money for it ten years later(and willing to plan a small 'con to meet other crazy fans on the internets, no less). We're niche, but Utena is special enough to largely be considered a classic of anime on par with Evangelion. I WILL BUY ANYTHING RELEASED DAMMIT. I'm normally NEVER the person to do something like that, but this is a special anime.

The company does seem smart enough to not do dumb crap like hard subs, so that's not even worth mentioning. Of course, I'd also like clean openings and endings, generally anything to make AMVs better. Not having that just motivates people to pirate what they can't get from the DVD, even if they do want to support the series.
And every damn interview with Ikuhara available. ESPECIALLY the one done with Ikuhara and Saito watching the last episode on CPM's last DVD. That was the only really cool extra CPM had. They also did snippets of an Ikuhara interview at a since long failed anime convention they supported, but the parts were chopped up so small that it was mostly kind of useless. I'm also hoping for some music CDs, but that's gonna come down to whether they think it'd be worth getting the rights. Honestly, the best extras and the most likely to happen will come down to setting up something with Ikuhara. I'd love to see what he thinks about it in retrospect ten years later, but knowing him, we might not even find that out. Inscrutable bastard.

I wish--and this is a total fantasy that's not going to happen--they had clips of English actor screw ups for a gag reel. They're rare for dubs in general, and CPM probably didn't keep them in the first place, but I'm just dreaming here. Because everything I've heard of Crispin Freeman when he's screwing around behind the mike...he gets CRAZY dirty. I can just imagine the downright foul things he's said using Touga as a puppet. Infact, I'd actually like an interview with Crispin Freeman(they may have originally been in the CPM dub, but I think I was so disgusted by Jimmy Zoppi and crap that I only watched a couple; even so, I doubt the questions they asked him were very good anyway). The man actually knows what he's doing and thinks about the series he's working on. Yeah, I'm sort of a Freeman fangirl, but the man truly deserves it. I would actually like to hear his interpretation of Touga and the series in general. Not that big into the Japanese VAs because, while they did have more direction from the source, the general idea of voicing anime over there is defined by the TYPE that a character is and what little box can we put the character in. I think seiyuu are often overrated. They don't necessarily have any concept of story or...anything beyond what they do(as evidence, Weiss Kruez was written by prominent seiyuu, and is the most so-bad-its-good-no-wait-maybe-just-bad anime ever).

The interviews with the English cast in general were only good for explaining why certain aspects of the dub were not so great. Like the fact that they had no clue who Akio really was when they cast him to be a shadowy figure and had to call the guy back a few years later and be like "Hey, remember that shadow you voiced? Yeah, he's a Machiavellian playboy. Good luck with that." Lots of the problems with the acting pretty much drew out of no one actually seeing most of the series or knowing what happened until they got their hands on it. I don't think they realized that Anthy, you know, had to have a decent RANGE of emotions for later--they just cared that she sounded right and didn't check that she could emote that well because she didn't seem to need it as much in the first arc. And, you know, no one generally paying attention to pronunciation and stuff all that much in the industry in general. I remember talking with a CPM employee when they were working on the dubbing of the Black Rose Saga, and they were actually putting a lot of work into getting people to say MikaGEY and not MikaJAY--which was apparently a big issue they were having. Too little, too late unfortunately.

Last edited by Frau Eva (07-08-2010 01:45:22 PM)