AoD Review: Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny Collection 1

[Chris Beveridge]

Review (http://www.animeondvd.com/reviews2/disc_reviews/5010.php)

Reviewer: Chris Beveridge

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In Summary:
It's been months since the end of Gundam Seed so getting into Destiny took a bit of catch-up since I had forgotten characters and how the world was left politically but what you get out of Destiny in its first quarter here is a great big Gundam action series with lots of space and ground battles, decisive moments and characters who are dealing with some pretty extreme situations all while those in power manipulate the world to their liking and vision. Once it gets underway and the action starts, it peels away its layers slowly but it does reveal a lot and entice you as the characters make their choices and find their way in a very uncertain world. This set was a hell of a lot of fun to watch and Seed Destiny is some of the best marathon material out there, at least for this set. Very recommended for fans of Seed itself since I can't see this as a jumping on point unless you really like to learn about a shows history as you go along. I can't wait to get my hands on more of it.

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[Jarred]

Has anyone ever tried contacting YesAsia to see if they would carry these Odex SG DVDs now that they are back in the game?

[shokoti]

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Jarred said:
Has anyone ever tried contacting YesAsia to see if they would carry these Odex SG DVDs now that they are back in the game?

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I haven't but was thinking about it; I asked them to add the ParaKiss DVDs towards the end of last year and they did within a week or two.

I really want to see some of their sets; I'd really love to get their Destiny set (even though I'll be getting the R1s) but there's nowhere to order them. /images/graemlins/cry00000.gif

Edit: Have e-mailed them; will post back what they say.

[Reinhardt]

How expensive are Odex DVD sets in general? I am only mildly interested in Destiny after hearing so many negative things about it, so I am not picking up the Region 1 as singles. So my choice is to either wait quite a while for a cheap region 1 complete collection or get these Odex sets if priced right.

[Chris Beveridge]

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Reinhardt said:
How expensive are Odex DVD sets in general? I am only mildly interested in Destiny after hearing so many negative things about it, so I am not picking up the Region 1 as singles. So my choice is to either wait quite a while for a cheap region 1 complete collection or get these Odex sets if priced right.

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I'll be updating with a full price list this coming week but I've been told that the Destiny set is:

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The retail price of all ODEX DVDs are SGD$39.90 (US$24.51) for 1 box set (3 to 4 DVD, 12 to 13 episodes).

Based on today's exchange rate US$1 = SGD$1.6275


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[Innova]

Hey Chris are the DVDs NTSC or PAL? And where did you buy em from?

[Chris Beveridge]

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Innova said:
Hey Chris are the DVDs NTSC or PAL? And where did you buy em from?

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They're NTSC. I received them directly from Odex (we had been chatting about their work on the Dan Doh!! release for Bandai Entertainment and one thing led to another since we did reviews of their original DVD run back in 2001).

I'd really suggest people contact yesasia to show the interest and then go from there.

[ilmaestro]

What is the release schedule likely to be for the series? If it's going to be finished fairly soon I would be interested, but not if the R1 is only going to be a couple of months behind.

[naiera]

I don't know about this. The packaging really looks crappy (at least the one for FMA does). Exactly like a bootleg. I'm not saying I think it is, I'm just saying it leaves the wrong impression. Why not go with keep cases like for Boys Be?

[Chris Beveridge]

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Naiera said:
I don't know about this. The packaging really looks crappy (at least the one for FMA does). Exactly like a bootleg. I'm not saying I think it is, I'm just saying it leaves the wrong impression. Why not go with keep cases like for Boys Be?

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I don't know what looks crappy about it. It's the same as several other digipack sets so that just sets some people off in general. But it uses the original Japanese character artwork for the first three volumes, has a good look all around it. It's no different than some of the digipacks that Geneon's done over the years.

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Naiera said:
I don't know about this. The packaging really looks crappy (at least the one for FMA does). Exactly like a bootleg. I'm not saying I think it is, I'm just saying it leaves the wrong impression. Why not go with keep cases like for Boys Be?

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In all seriousness, anything released in a digipak is reminiscent of a bootleg, it's not their fault. If every bootleg set had been thinpacked instead then no one would want those.

I'm guessing that they can save a lot of money by doing digipaks, since they're not going to do any singles whatsoever anyway. Most R1 boxed sets with keep cases have already had (or will have) a run of singles so the packaging process has most likely already been set up. Keep cases would also increase shipping costs and since the main point with these Odex sets is the incredibly low price, they'd just be crippling themselves.

[naiera]

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Pyocola said:
In all seriousness, anything released in a digipak is reminiscent of a bootleg, it's not their fault.

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It's still their fault they've chosen to release stuff like that. Going from keep cases to digipaks seems like a step backwards to me.

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Pyocola said:
Keep cases would also increase shipping costs and since the main point with these Odex sets is the incredibly low price, they'd just be crippling themselves.

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What's funny about this is that the only store selling them internationally, and I've still only seen FMA there, charge out of their asses for shipping, making it seem like you're paying for the shipping of 10 keep cases.

[leongsh]

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Naiera said:
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Pyocola said:
In all seriousness, anything released in a digipak is reminiscent of a bootleg, it's not their fault.

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It's still their fault they've chosen to release stuff like that. Going from keep cases to digipaks seems like a step backwards to me.

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Pyocola already mentioned the likely reason that they are releasing the show on digipaks is because they will not be releasing the series on single DVDs and thus, do not want to release them in keep cases. Do note that a number of original Japanese DVD boxset releases do come in digipaks too - e.g. the R2J City Hunter DVD Boxset.

Besides, you're in R2 Europe and you're moaning about an R3 release and how they should do it for you when you are not part of their primary market/region is taking it a bit too far.

I personally think the choice they made of using digipaks is fine. I'll probably take a look at the set when I am in Singapore for the Chinese New Year holidays later this month. For the price, it's cheap enough for me to take a dip.

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Naiera said:
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Pyocola said:
Keep cases would also increase shipping costs and since the main point with these Odex sets is the incredibly low price, they'd just be crippling themselves.

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What's funny about this is that the only store selling them internationally, and I've still only seen FMA there, charge out of their asses for shipping, making it seem like you're paying for the shipping of 10 keep cases.

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Well, the only store (I presume, you mean Popular Book Store) selling them internationally is only doing it as an adjunct to where they earn most of their sales through their chain of bookshops. They do not sell a lot internationally through the internet and don't get volume discounts on shipping. It has to be worth their trouble to do so and they would want to recover those costs.

[naiera]

I could ship cheaper internationally than Popular. It's not rocket science to figure out that it's not neccessary to charge that much for shipping no matter how infrequently they sell to international customers.

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leongsh said:
Besides, you're in R2 Europe and you're moaning about an R3 release and how they should do it for you when you are not part of their primary market/region is taking it a bit too far.

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Yadda yadda yadda. I reserve the right to express my views. I don't give a damn about being in their target region or not. This is the Internet after all, not China. You'll find me "moaning" quite frequently in the R1 forum as well. Should I stop doing that as well? I buy bucket loads of R1 releases. That makes me a customer of R1 anime companies. Thus I can most certainly complain. I haven't really had the chance of being a customer of Odex' yet though, but I'll buy English subbed anime no matter what the region is...

[leongsh]

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Naiera said:
I could ship cheaper internationally than Popular. It's not rocket science to figure out that it's not neccessary to charge that much for shipping no matter how infrequently they sell to international customers.

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You could probably ship cheaper internationally than Popular from where you are. However, you do not pay the same rates that Popular has to pay in Singapore for the service to be rendered. A simple example being EMS shipping cost between Malaysia and Singapore. The rates to ship from Malaysia to Singapore are different from the rates to ship from Singapore to Malaysia. One is cheaper and the other is more expensive after doing the currency conversions.

In addition, as a business, they may have to do a bit more paperwork in their shipping declarations and they do want to recover the cost of doing such paperwork which they would not need to do if they were just shipping within their locale.

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Naiera said:
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leongsh said:
Besides, you're in R2 Europe and you're moaning about an R3 release and how they should do it for you when you are not part of their primary market/region is taking it a bit too far.

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Yadda yadda yadda. I reserve the right to express my views. I don't give a damn about being in their target region or not. This is the Internet after all, not China.

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Of course, you have the right to express your views and in the internet too, no less. However, if your views are found to be unreasonable by others, it will be pointed out where and how those views are unreasonable. That's all I did, to show how unreasonable you are in your views.

[naiera]

Unreasonable? Come on. You basically told me to shut up because I'm "not in the region". Going by your logic, Chris shouldn't review this title either, because he might say something negative about it. OMGz!

And I've explained why I shouldn't have to listen to YOU moan about my "moaning", and that's because I'm a customer, or a possible one at least. If you go into the R1 forum to do the same whenever I complain about an R1 release, I'll seriously start getting pissed off.

[Skywise]

Enough already. Take it somewhere else. Consider this an official warning.