Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny: Vol.6 (Beez)
There’s two 50+ episode series that have volumes out this week and this is the first and worst. I’m not a fan of the first Gundam Seed, it seemed to simply be ground retrod to an extraordinary level even for a Gundam show. And I am led to understand that it’s sequel isn’t even well liked by people who did enjoy Seed Classic.
Eureka Seven: Vol.6 (Beez)
Eureka Seven I’m more keen on based on what little I’ve seen. For a start it’s characters don’t all look alike. And it has surfboarding mecha designed by Shoji Kawamori. But still, it is a TV show and at £15 a pop you’d be insane to buy either of these shows. I’d wait for the boxset on this one.
IGPX (Immortal Grand Prix): Vol.5 (Beez)
And another single volume release. I have never seen this. One thing that distinguishes this show is that it was made by Production IG for Cartoon Network. And as such it has actors in it that are getting paid proper wages. According to IMDB, Mark Hamill, Lance Henriksen and Tom Kenny amongst others have all turned in performances. Beez are messing up this release moreso than other single volume releases. Unlike Seed and E7 this isn’t a show that exists in an anime fandom ghetto, this is a show that should be priced along the lines of Contender’s Yu-Gi-Oh or Beyblade DVDs, and stocked in the kids aisle of Woolies.
.Hack//Sign: Complete Collection Box 1 (5 Discs) (Beez)
Talking of boxsets. Apparantly this is a £40 set of 27 episodes of the tv show .hack//sign, but you can find it for the more reasonable £30. So it’s a shame it’s so dull and marks the drift into mediocrity of Kazunori Ito, who used to be pretty neat (Urusei Yatsura, Patlabor, Ghost In The Shell). In fact it seems his work since he and Akemi Takada (character designer on UY and Patlabor) divorced has been somewhat lacking. And I wonder if the depressing tone of this show is down to that. I’ve mentioned the somewhat staid direction in an earlier post, but there are some good things about the show – nice Sadamoto character designs and a very good soundtrack.
