Sea dub (it was actually pretty good), we went over to the mall and
looked around there.
"fye" (For Your Entertainment) formerly Camelot Music, sells anime.
However, they were doing a sale but you have to actually look to find
the deals. Some (but not a whole lot) were indicated as $7.99 "on sale"
and up. Some were not. It's also a store that will buy and re-sell
previously owned Anime DVDs (among others). Buy 3 of the Orange Sticker
DVDs and get a 4th free. (Those are usually the used ones.) Geneon
titles were Half Off, but I guess nobody told them they have to compete
with online stores like Right Stuf. I laughed at the prices on ones I
bought for so much less.
Anywho, we got to looking around the store and I started seeing one
section, anime DVDs mixed in, but with $4.99 stickers on them. Kiddy
Grade, Tenchi Muyou GXP... Ah, their Bargain Bin. And so I get to
looking a bit closer. One Kiddy Grade DVD was rattling, so I made sure
not to buy that one.
I settled on a 2-disk TM GXP offering. But when it scans, the price is
suddenly $2.97. What the heck? Well, I wish there was extra signage or
something to let me know that was the real price. I'd have bought a few
more.
So moments later I'm opening up the package, and one disk like pops
right out. Oh. The Funimation promo booklet sorta kept it from moving
around a whole lot, so there's a few scuffs but nothing major.
I get them home, and playing them just before getting to post this, the
loose disk plays just fine. The other disk...
Well, my Maggie recorder played it fine up until 6 or 7 minutes before
the end of the disk, then it began jumping over bits. I should have
realized something might be wrong because there's a Profiles thingy
under Extras, and all it does is load pictures with text to read. The
other disk these loaded fine, but they wouldn't with this disk. I eject
the disk, no hairs, try to play, it screws up in the same place. Hmm..
I get it out, and look closely. I see 3 little areas where the plastic
didn't quite get a perfect seal when it was stamped out. 3 little air
bubbles or something formed during manufacture. You can see the ridges
of these areas. The reflective coating went on, and here we are.
My Toshiba DVD player was able to load the Profiles section, but there
was obvious data errors as it tried to load one page of graphics. It
wasn't able to play much of the preview trailers (The Kiddy Grade
trailer especially, but it was the only one I tested), and I got to see
up to just under 5 minutes left of the 3rd episode before the player
jumped to 1:45 before the end of the episode. I just ejected it and
might try making a backup with the computer. It might not read the disk
any better, but here's hoping. At worst, I just buy another single copy
of the disk with episodes 18 to 20 on it, since they also had single
disk volumes of TM GXP, one that also had the some of the same episodes
as the 2-disk offering I bought. (Though I wonder if Funi just
repackaged their single disks into this 2-disk set and maybe their other
copies might also be defective? It's happened before...)
It turned out to be a crap shoot. One disk I thought would be bad was
good, and one disk that should have been good was bad, near the end
anyway.
Though I haven't tried that disk in my Cyberhome recorder, Cyberhome
player, Mickey Mouse DVD player (useless anyway), nor the Zenith player
which usually plays anything it recognizes (though there's a couple bits
in the Charile and the Chocolate Factory DVD it has problems with which
used to play fine I thought). Already tried in my Apex, and I need to
tighten the data cable as it connects to the laser assembly.
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