CollectorCanine Posted October 30 Posted October 30 4 hours ago, Ando said: Is it true the discs are extremely difficult to remove from the book? I'm on the verge of ordering but the only unboxing video I can find show the guy bending the discs so much it looks like they're about to break! And @Uxi mentions above that they are tricky to remove. https://youtu.be/XxOJqktKs6Q?t=274 They were difficult to remove at first for me, but after doing it a few times I have found a technique that prevents the bending and gets them out semi-easily. Still not easy, but better than them bending... Quote
Ando Posted October 30 Posted October 30 12 hours ago, CollectorCanine said: They were difficult to remove at first for me, but after doing it a few times I have found a technique that prevents the bending and gets them out semi-easily. Still not easy, but better than them bending... Cool, this is great to know. Does your technique involve pressing quite hard on the center clip to release the disc, as @Uxi mentioned? I also contacted Crunchyroll and they said they haven't received any support tickets regarding damaged discs/clips. I will place my order today! Quote
azrael Posted October 30 Posted October 30 4 minutes ago, Ando said: Cool, this is great to know. Does your technique involve pressing quite hard on the center clip to release the disc, as @Uxi mentioned? I also contacted Crunchyroll and they said they haven't received any support tickets regarding damaged discs/clips. I will place my order today! I won't expect them to receive any calls about disc cracking this early. Disc cracking usually occurs over time, popping the discs in and out from the holder. Amazon has a 5-pack of blank cases for $13 (Cheaper if you look for it on AliExpress or Temu). Quote
Ando Posted October 30 Posted October 30 10 minutes ago, azrael said: I won't expect them to receive any calls about disc cracking this early. Disc cracking usually occurs over time, popping the discs in and out from the holder. Amazon has a 5-pack of blank cases for $13 (Cheaper if you look for it on AliExpress or Temu). Yeah, I will end up putting them a separate case if I find myself struggling too much. This may be an unpopular opinion, but I like the idea of the book holding the discs and I'd prefer to keep them in the book. It will encourage me to flip through the book every time I watch! Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted October 31 Posted October 31 My copy arrived today. I was surprised by how hefty the box is. Definitely not thrilled with the decision to put the discs inside of the book instead of in a separate case. The print quality of the art seems nice though. Quote
Steady Posted October 31 Posted October 31 (edited) I used to have an account like over 15 years ago and can't remember my username. Anyway, just wanted to drop by and weigh in on this set. I just received mine and these are my initial impressions. I live in Canada and this set was an eye-watering $250 bucks. Ouch. But it is a nice presentation. Its a heavy box set and reminds me of the old Laserdisc days. In fact, its the exact size of a typical Laserdisc set (12inX12in). This would display nicely with my Macross the Movie Perfect Edition Laserdisc box set but its packed away in a box and I don't have the space to display it anyway. The book is well made with high quality materials, and I'm looking forward to reading though it. This isn't some throw-in afterthought. After flpping through the book, It looks like its chock full of info and concept art which is cool. However, I am surprised they didn't run this through a basic spelling and grammar checker for an otherwise lavish book. The artwork on the 12x12 cards and the little Sharon Apple poster is nice in a nostalgic 90s way, but I will never look at them again and will only get in the way when I open this set. As for the discs, they are indeed difficult to remove like others are saying in this thread. I may put them in a simple DVD case later. The image quality is fantastic and is a massive improvement over the old ancient DVDs, which honestly, was I always thought was a shoddy VHS transfer. The 2.0 stereo is fine on the episodes. I haven't watched the movie edition yet. The biggest issue I have with this set is how the subtitles were handled. The audio tracks and subtitles settings are combined into one option and I think that is an odd decision. If you select Japanese audio, you get the subtitles whether you want them on or not. The subtitles are cannot be turned off from the disc's menu. Thankfully my 4K Blu-ray player can turn them off in the player's menu settings if I just want to watch the program without subtitles. One more thing...and I realize this is a thing for many Japanese animation fans, but I don't like having subtitles for the pop song sequences. I really don't care at all. For me, they get in the way. I wish there was a "no subtitles for songs" option. So, I finally have this on Blu-ray. Physical forms of entertainment are becoming more and more rare, and I highly doubt there will be a 4K release. I don't really watch Japanese animation anymore, but Macross Plus is one of my favorites from way back in the 90s, so I pulled the trigger on this. I only bought this set so I could get the 4 episodes, so its quite a steep price to get those. Overall, I am glad to have this even though I think it could've been executed better. Update: I already slightly bent up the Sharon Apple poster trying to put everything back in the slipcase. My advice--just put the poster inside the book. Edited October 31 by Steady Quote
Gamma00Ray Posted October 31 Posted October 31 1 hour ago, Steady said: I used to have an account like over 15 years ago and can't remember my username. Anyway, just wanted to drop by and weigh in on this set. I just received mine and these are my initial impressions. I live in Canada and this set was an eye-watering $250 bucks. Ouch. But it is a nice presentation. Its a heavy box set and reminds me of the old Laserdisc days. In fact, its the exact size of a typical Laserdisc set (12inX12in). This would display nicely with my Macross the Movie Perfect Edition Laserdisc box set but its packed away in a box and I don't have the space to display it anyway. The book is well made with high quality materials, and I'm looking forward to reading though it. This isn't some throw-in afterthought. After flpping through the book, It looks like its chock full of info and concept art which is cool. However, I am surprised they didn't run this through a basic spelling and grammar checker for an otherwise lavish book. The artwork on the 12x12 cards and the little Sharon Apple poster is nice in a nostalgic 90s way, but I will never look at them again and will only get in the way when I open this set. As for the discs, they are indeed difficult to remove like others are saying in this thread. I may put them in a simple DVD case later. The image quality is fantastic and is a massive improvement over the old ancient DVDs, which honestly, was I always thought was a shoddy VHS transfer. The 2.0 stereo is fine on the episodes. I haven't watched the movie edition yet. The biggest issue I have with this set is how the subtitles were handled. The audio tracks and subtitles settings are combined into one option and I think that is an odd decision. If you select Japanese audio, you get the subtitles whether you want them on or not. The subtitles are cannot be turned off from the disc's menu. Thankfully my 4K Blu-ray player can turn them off in the player's menu settings if I just want to watch the program without subtitles. One more thing...and I realize this is a thing for many Japanese animation fans, but I don't like having subtitles for the pop song sequences. I really don't care at all. For me, they get in the way. I wish there was a "no subtitles for songs" option. So, I finally have this on Blu-ray. Physical forms of entertainment are becoming more and more rare, and I highly doubt there will be a 4K release. I don't really watch Japanese animation anymore, but Macross Plus is one of my favorites from way back in the 90s, so I pulled the trigger on this. I only bought this set so I could get the 4 episodes, so its quite a steep price to get those. Overall, I am glad to have this even though I think it could've been executed better. Update: I already slightly bent up the Sharon Apple poster trying to put everything back in the slipcase. My advice--just put the poster inside the book. Heads up in case you liked Do You Remember Love back in the day but are out of the loop enough since yo don't watch anime so much anymore that you would've missed the news, it's getting an official Japanese region A release with English subtitles in January. The disc holders in the book are indeed pretty bad. I managed to find a four disc blu ray case and moved these discs and bootlegs I got years ago into that case along with the bootleg's art insert. The new discs will live on my anime shelf now. Quote
Steady Posted October 31 Posted October 31 41 minutes ago, Gamma00Ray said: Heads up in case you liked Do You Remember Love back in the day but are out of the loop enough since yo don't watch anime so much anymore that you would've missed the news, it's getting an official Japanese region A release with English subtitles in January. The disc holders in the book are indeed pretty bad. I managed to find a four disc blu ray case and moved these discs and bootlegs I got years ago into that case along with the bootleg's art insert. The new discs will live on my anime shelf now. Hi Gamma... Yes, I pre-ordered Do You Remember Love on 4K disc from CD Japan a while ago when I heard the news, but thanks for letting me know. I'm really looking forward to that release. As for the disc holders on this Macross Plus set, I tried to put the OVA disc back in the box, but I was afraid of damaging both the book and the disc, so I just put both discs in a temporary case for now. I'll try to order a replacement case from Amazon or something. Maybe they wanted to make sure the discs didn't fall out when opening the book. But I think the design they chose works a little too well. Quote
The Shade Posted November 1 Posted November 1 I received mine today. Like a lot of people are saying, it's very heavy and very big. I have not yet had the chance to open it yet, but I'm jokingly expecting a laserdisc set to be included in there. It's that big. I'm glad to finally have this. Quote
Rhubarbarian Posted November 1 Posted November 1 My fiancee also thought I bought the laserdiscs, ha. The box is the right size/shape. Quote
Pontus Posted November 2 Posted November 2 DO NOT buy this from Crunchyroll. They packaged mine in a box with zero padding other than some craft paper under one side. The whole corner of the box ripped out. Fortunately, it only dinged the corner a little bit, but this is unacceptable packaging! Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted November 2 Posted November 2 17 minutes ago, Pontus said: DO NOT buy this from Crunchyroll. They packaged mine in a box with zero padding other than some craft paper under one side. The whole corner of the box ripped out. Fortunately, it only dinged the corner a little bit, but this is unacceptable packaging! I ordered mine from Crunchyroll and it arrived with no issues to speak of despite spending several additional days in the care of the USPS. They're definitely not going overboard with the padding the way I've seen HLJ and CDJapan do, but mine came wrapped in several layers of paper padding. It looks like yours got mangled in a sort facility though... Quote
Pontus Posted November 2 Posted November 2 2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said: I ordered mine from Crunchyroll and it arrived with no issues to speak of despite spending several additional days in the care of the USPS. They're definitely not going overboard with the padding the way I've seen HLJ and CDJapan do, but mine came wrapped in several layers of paper padding. It looks like yours got mangled in a sort facility though... Interesting, mine spent several additional days in USPS shipping too after it came up with an error saying it was getting forwarded back to the shipper, but then it went back through the local shipping system again. My box only had a single wadded up sheet of paper under one side. I'll see if they'll exchange it, but I don't want to wait for them to get the return before shipping my replacement in case they run out of stock in that time, so I think I'll see if they'll ship the replacement before I ship it back. Quote
Steady Posted November 2 Posted November 2 Oh no...that's terrible. Mine was packaged like yours--just some thick brown paper in a cardboard box not much larger than the box inside. There wasn't much room to slide around. My order was delivered via FedEx and there was no damage to anything, so it maybe it was the carrier. But I've ordered stuff from Amazon and other places that arrived damaged. Luck of the draw I suppose. I will say that I was a bit surprised at how little padding there was inside the box for something this pricey. I've never ordered anything from Crunchyroll. And after looking around on their site, they don't have anything that interests me. So I doubt I will be ordering from them again in the future. This was kind of a one-off for me. Maybe you could email them (be nice) with photos explaining the importance of good shipping protection for their products. They might try to help. You never know. Quote
The Shade Posted November 2 Posted November 2 Mine also came in that same box type with only the bare minimum of paper for padding. I'm surprised there was no damage, despite it having to go through the US/Canada border. Quote
kajnrig Posted November 3 Posted November 3 Anyone have the dimensions of the art cards and Sharon Apple concert promo poster? I think I saw 12"x12" somewhere earlier but don't know for sure... Quote
Chronocidal Posted November 3 Posted November 3 The Sharon poster is a little awkward, so it'd need some matting to frame it nicely. Overall dimensions are 8" and 1/2" by 11" and 11/16"... it's not much better in metric, at 210 mm by 297 mm. The other prints are all very close to 12" and 3/8" on each side, so slightly bigger than 12"x12." Quote
Uxi Posted November 4 Posted November 4 (edited) Was interested to read in the book that Kawamori thought the YF-21 would use the same flexible material in the legs to make them fit in fighter mode. Maybe other people knew that already but first time I heard that. Perhaps Arcadia just needs to include some rubbery sleeves that slide over the Yamato design legs (and/ or include a chunkier set to swap out). Perfect Transformation sticklers can live with skinny legs. The anime magic was deliberate, though. Edited November 4 by Uxi Quote
Shawn Posted November 4 Posted November 4 No I don't recall that information before(yf21 magic warps legs) but that could explain away a lot of anime magic for the yf21...legs torso etc etc That is pretty cool! Quote
pengbuzz Posted November 4 Posted November 4 34 minutes ago, Shawn said: No I don't recall that information before(yf21 magic warps legs) but that could explain away a lot of anime magic for the yf21...legs torso etc etc That is pretty cool! Flexible material for the legs? I thought General Galaxy built the YF-21, not Boeing! Quote
Chronocidal Posted November 4 Posted November 4 What I've always wanted to see someone try was actually make the lower legs expand and collapse. As far as I recall, the Yamato design did follow the original art for how the legs were supposed to be arranged in the belly, and while they're obviously way too skinny, I never thought they looked bad from the side. I don't know if you would have the required space to get the full sized legs Bandai used, but say you could hinge the side panels of the calves below the knee, and let them expand, while filling the front and back in with panels that recessed when collapsed, you might get something that looked at least a little better than the "fully collapsed" version we have now. Quote
Uxi Posted November 4 Posted November 4 The book says the 'wings and armor' are supposed to be a new technology that allows them to warp their shape and specifically would allow the legs to get smaller to fit stowed in fighter mode. We saw the wings flexing in place of control surfaces in Guld's preflight as well as the BDS accident that took action on his stray thought of smashing Isamu's VF-11 to the ground. The idea of that being used in the shoulders and fighter nose definitely help account for the changes in shape and proportions from Fighter to Battroid, though raises other issues... like real fighters, variable fighters don't have much space that isn't used to store mechanisms or fuel and ammunition, etc. Toys don't have to account for that, so can fold, panel, telescope and collapse, etc. Quote
CollectorCanine Posted November 4 Posted November 4 14 hours ago, Mommar said: How does the movie look? It looks perfectly good to me. Quote
oshanmacross Posted November 6 Posted November 6 Happy with the artbook, I don't recall ever seeing a good percentage of this production art. I have the Japanese DVD and Blu-Ray box, the two "this is animation" art books and some of this stuff I have never seen before. Now the hard subs of course are an atrocity...... Hoping to actually be satisfied with the Japanese DYRL 4K Blu-Ray, but we all know how terrible the video quality looked last time on the standard Blu-Ray. Fearful it will be a smoothed out AI mess. Quote
Steady Posted November 6 Posted November 6 I totally agree with you on how they handled the subtitles on this release. Its a real splash of cold water on what is otherwise a nice box set. Here it is next to my Macross the Movie DYRL Laserdisc. Cautiously awaiting the 4K edition of DYRL. I hope they do it right regarding the image quality and subtitles. Quote
Keith Posted November 7 Posted November 7 On 11/5/2024 at 7:33 PM, oshanmacross said: Happy with the artbook, I don't recall ever seeing a good percentage of this production art. I have the Japanese DVD and Blu-Ray box, the two "this is animation" art books and some of this stuff I have never seen before. Now the hard subs of course are an atrocity...... Hoping to actually be satisfied with the Japanese DYRL 4K Blu-Ray, but we all know how terrible the video quality looked last time on the standard Blu-Ray. Fearful it will be a smoothed out AI mess. They're locked, not hard. Hard subs are actually burned into the video, locked subs "could" be worled around with a prpprr doftware or hardware hack(such as re-authoring the didcs to remove the lock flag, or using a player that ignore's such locks). Quote
oshanmacross Posted November 7 Posted November 7 (edited) 12 minutes ago, Keith said: They're locked, not hard. Hard subs are actually burned into the video, locked subs "could" be worled around with a prpprr doftware or hardware hack(such as re-authoring the didcs to remove the lock flag, or using a player that ignore's such locks). Got it! as soon as I rip the discs I'll see if any of my bizarre media player boxes will disable them and let you guys know if possible. Edited November 7 by oshanmacross Quote
Steady Posted November 7 Posted November 7 I have a Panasonic UB820 4K player which allows me to move the subtitles off the screen which I guess is kind of nice in this case. I just wish I could turn off the subtitles to the music. Ridiculous that you can't. Quote
Steady Posted November 12 Posted November 12 I felt like making a custom cover for my Macross Plus box set. Quote
The Shade Posted November 12 Posted November 12 20 hours ago, Steady said: I felt like making a custom cover for my Macross Plus box set. Beautiful. Is there a way to download full version of it? Quote
Steady Posted November 13 Posted November 13 Hey thanks Shade. Is it ok to just post it in here? Its kind of a large file. Quote
The Shade Posted November 14 Posted November 14 On 11/13/2024 at 4:37 AM, Steady said: Hey thanks Shade. Is it ok to just post it in here? Its kind of a large file. If the web board will permit it, sure. Quote
Steady Posted November 15 Posted November 15 Ok. Here's the jpg if you or anyone else would like to use it. Quote
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