A prime example of a long running show scuppered in the US by its release format. 15 volumes at $29.98, you’d have dropped around $450 on this buying it as it came out. With Geneon now gone from the US market and no-one in a hurry to re-license the volumes are very varied in prices, some under the original price, others rising in price. Looking at Amazon UK, I can see the first box set (volumes 1-8) is now going for £190.85, as opposed to the original price of $79.99.
Voted #98 in TV Asahi’s 2005 top 100 anime survey, the popularity of the manga meant it got a sequel series earlier this year. And for a late night anime it pretty much killed it, getting strong ratings for late night anime and running far longer than shows typical for that audience.
Also another problem that was revealed later on was that the people who were bringing it to the US market didn’t actually get the cleaned up DVD versions of the show, but got the TV versions instead so some of the designs and animation was quite lacking.