For the longest time, I’ve resisted buying Taiwanese R3 parallel imports in the glorious democratic people’s island paradise republic of Singapore. But with GENEON USA giving up the ghost, I’ve given up hope of an R1 release of Maria-sama ga Miteru. And my resistance has cracked after two longstanding concerns were addressed. And so, I asked my good bro Stripey to procure the first season and Haru DVD sets, which he has for a total of SGD 150 (approx USD 100).
First longstanding concern. I’ve always been suspicious of ‘parallel imports’ since it’s hard to tell, especially just based on the packaging, what’s legit and what’s not (even with Censorship Board sticker!). But it’s been pointed out to me that there are certainly legit Taiwanese licensees who release quality goodies [addendum: these MariMite R3s were licensed by Muse]. But I wouldn’t describe them as cheap either. While, like most of my fellow Singaporeans, I ai pee ai chee ai tua lap nee (or perhaps in some cases ai pee ai chee ai Dee efF Cee), the price is still good value for money. I’m pretty relieved that the striped-tailed tanuki reports that all episodes look good on his huge TV, coming in at about 1 GB per episode and includes extras like Maria-sama ni wa naisho.
The other major concern stemmed from my lousy Chinese. It’s hard for me to follow Simplified Chinese subs, much less the Traditional Chinese subs used by Taiwanese R3s. But having watched this series with English subs and read Erica’s heroic translations of the source novels, I expect it should be much more manageable. It could even be an opportunity to improve my Chinese reading when I get back and get the DVDs back from Stripey who, by then, might even have been converted to Marimitism. ;)
While my priority will still be on R1 boxsets, LEs as well as UK releases, I’ll be depending on R3 releases of series that will probably never see the light of day in the US or UK (e.g. Nanoha, SHUFFLE!). Resistance is futile!
m bet is that if Strawberry Panic does well, you will see a sub only ver of Marmaite form Media Blaster.
Gokigenyou… onii-sama.. jya nakute. Yo bro! :) Wah you not scared of whip ah? ai pee ai DFC… you siao liao, going to report you XD
A great buy indeed. :) I forgot to mention it comes with creditless OP and ED. Just saw the ARIA R3s on the muse site I send you. Now to bug the fellow at the store to bring it in :)
Xellos - If MB licenses Marimite, then I will park myself in John Sirabella’s office night and day until I am assured that thery keept the damn honorifics!
Zyl - I kind of think the heroics are on the efforts of the readers…my translations are chunky, to say the least. :-) But then, I’m not translating for profit, but for fun. Despite myself, my translations are getting better. The 18th novel is almost comnprehensible. :-)(Not quite halfway on that right now.)
Having read the novels though, it definitely helps when I watch the raws myself. (the R2 collector’s sets are great. I can’t help but look at Yumi’s hair ribbons and think, “som guy is sitting there in front of his computer with these on….”) I know I wouldn;’t be able to follow half of what I’m hearing without having read the book first.
Cheers,
Erica
Hungry for Yuri? Have some Okazu!
http://okazu.blogspot.com
Ermm…I read all that…I swear!!
I didn’t just stare at the Yumi/Sachiki, YUMI/YOSHINO and Yumi/Sei pics.
I really Swear it!
So…er…Does this mean we can add a Yumi/Yoshino to the ship? Not that I haven’t done that already…
For some reason, I love that more than even SachikoxYumi (DOH! Runs away from incoming stones…Some belonging to Zyl-sama in fact)