Loot 2012-04-10

It’s been what feels like just a little while and we’re already having another LD-licious loot-post? Well, to be fair, last time I had some LD-lootage was back in February so cut me some slack :p Since it’s only LDs and there isn’t a need to really get down & dirty on the details, this will be a brief post.
With this haul, the Birdy the Mighty OVA-series is complete. It was quite a while since I saw the last two episodes, so I can’t comment on those but overall this is a series I very much enjoy.
Not only is it well animated, I like the style and “feel” of it. Also, it has a quality soundtrack, so it’s an thoroughly enjoyable experience which I really prefer over the franchise reboot which is Birdy DECODE. Happy to own it!

Other than that, we have the first episodes of the ToHeart TV-series & Battle Athletes OVA. Also, with these two episodes halfway to completion, 卒業 Graduation is based upon a series of games with the same name which for some reason mostly was released on the more niche gaming systems. That is to say, PC Engine, PC-FX & Saturn.
I’m not sure about this but I think it’s fairly unfamiliar to most people, especially since it never gained the kind of fan-following that ToHeart & Tokimeki Memorial did.

Last, but certainly not least, we have the premium item of today; the You’re Under Arrest the Movie TUNE UP BOX.
Actually, it seems special and all that, but I don’t know if I have seen any other LD-release of it so maybe the TUNE UP BOX is just a regular box :p
Inside there’s two discs & a booklet with some illustrations, commentary and such. Always nice to have.

And there we have it.

Book lootage 2012-03-25

Went a little shopping around on eBay for once – didn’t know you could find cool books like these on there for prices that doesn’t cost X amount of limbs or your eternal soul. Or both. Generally, I only buy electronics & the occasional game from eBay, and I know what things can cost there sometimes – the word “eBay gauging” wasn’t coined for nothing.

Man, taking photos of artbooks like these is a pain, some even needed a little bit of photoshopping afterwards to make them readable.

For the keen-eyed reader, there’s two MM-games in there as well: Rockman EXE 2 (Mega Man Battle Network 2) and Rockman DASH 2 (Mega Man Legends 2). I’ve played both of these before and the reason for getting them is a bit…weak, perhaps but why not. I’ve played through MMBN 2 a few times before using the excellent VisualBoyAdvance emulator, but I’ve felt a craving for the early MMBN-games again recently. So, I thought that I could try to play them “for real” this time, on real hardware & no save-states, and then in Japanese for kicks just to see how far I will get.
As for Rockman DASH 2…well, I already have it for PC and I’ve actually reached what I believe to be the final boss BUT, I’m sort of stuck. The controls are a bit wonky, the added mouse-support really can become problematic sometimes. Soo, maybe it will go better with the PS1-controller…not sure, but I’m happy to have it anyway.

Now for the good stuff~! They say a picture can convey a thousand words, and I can’t be arsed to write that many words. Picture spam imminent!

GALL FORCE MOOK*

The fighting gallant girls

GHOST IN THE SHELL OFFICIAL ART BOOK

3D action-shooting game for PlayStation

PATLABOR – Pulsation

Dragon Magazine Special**

Maybe, just maybe, this amount of photos is a bit overdoing it : |

* “Mook”, in this context, refers to a book styled and laid out similar to that of a magazine.
** While Wikipedia says that Dragon Magazine is a publication mainly for light-novels, they have released a number of artbooks as well. I have another one, featuring art from Michitaka Kikuchi (Silent Möbius, Borgman) and I’ve seen some for Slayers as well. The ones I have are very good, so keep a look out!

I forgot to mention…

…that I also got another Dreamcast. An NTSC-J unit, to be more precise. I totally forgot about it when compiling that last loot-post.

A new seller appeared on Tradera, which is the Swedish equivalent of eBay (actually, it’s owned by it, IIRC) that sells Japanese systems and games, ranging from the Famicom to the Dreamcast.
He had some loose DC units that were sold for quite cheap so I had to pick one up, seeing that I probably had most stuff needed to hook it up.

It’s got a few scratches and scuff marks but it works fine. I also picked up Deadly Skies for it, but I haven’t really had the chance to try it out thanks to me sticking it next to my PAL unit, which is a bit too far away from the step down converter and powerstrip I use for import systems. That sounds like a very stupid reason, and it is, but I’m planning on moving some things around, should I get my hands on the things I need soo…we’ll see. Happy to have it, anyway!

On and ending note, there’s an interesting little difference in details between the two units, besides the color of the swirly logo. The upper part of the inverted triangle shape near the top front edge is solid grey plastic on my PAL unit, while the NTSC-J unit sports one made out clear plastic.

Intriguing.

Loot 2012-02-21

Alright, first loot post in 2012!
There’s games, books, music and anime both in LD & Blu-ray. Yup, think we have all bases covered this time…
The How to draw Manga-books came from the same Amazon purchase as the collectors edition of REDLINE, since I wanted to reach the amount needed for free shipping. As far as how-to-books goes, they’re neither bad nor great. They feature some interesting inteviews but they don’t teach you any techniques besides “draw more” :p
And as for REDLINE, haven’t watched it yet. I’m thinking of watching it the first time with some friends for maximum effect.

Moving on then, to music! Let’s just get those Sailor Moon CDs out of the way first. One turned out to be some sort of drama cd, but giving it a quick listen, Usagi’s voice is all I can hear. Upon closer inspection there are songs in there, they just start after 1 or 2 minutes of the characters talking. Weird that they didn’t separate the tracks. The full OP & ED is included though so it’s not that bad I suppose. As for the other one, it refuses to play. I’ve tried that disc in, basically, everything that I own that can play a CD and it just doesn’t work. Weirdest thing is, the CD looks pretty good too. No big fingerprints, hardly any scratches…but there seem to be some kind of…something just around the inner area. Maybe that’s it. I’ll need to see if I can clean it somehow.

Aside from Sailor Moon, there’s also two albums from Mariko Nagai, who I discovered late last year through youtube and the anime Yawara!. There’s mostly good early 90′s j-pop in there and some slower songs as well. Good stuff!
Lastly, there’s an album by the group Pink Sapphire. A “tv-sized” version of their song “P.S. I Love You” is played in the main menu of the first Galaxy Fraulein Yuna game, so that’s where I heard it. Sadly, it also has some kind of playback problem during the first track. Wonder what I can do about that…

1st OP for Yawara! The song is “Miracle Girl” by Mariko Nagai

“P.S. I Love You” by Pink Sapphire

On to the games, then. There’s Bomberman ’94 for the PCE (HuCards are totally rad), which needs no introduction since it’s well…Bomberman. Same goes for Daytona USA. Then there’s JetMoto, which I have fond memories of playing the PC-version I borrowed from a friend when I was younger. And finally there’s Racing Lagoon, which is this rather interesting tuning-racer mixed with a healthy dose of RPG-elements (complete with an over world mode and “enemies” that forces you into a quick battle should they hit you with their car), from Squaresoft, of all companies. Now, the character CG models haven’t aged well at all, the driving feels floaty and slightly off but the music is, for the most part so far, bloody fantastic. Oh, and then there’s Noël – Not Digital, because I could. I’m not very good at these kind of games (Noël 3 on the Saturn gave me a bad end, oops!) but I’m strangely attracted to them.

And with that we move on to the last group, the LaserDiscs. Last time there were 5 of them, this time it’s only 4 but all very good. With this I can add Idol Defense Force Hummingbird to the list of completed series, and Bubblegum Crisis, Birdy the Mighty & All Purpose Cultural Catgirl Nuku Nuku gets another one each.

Hummingbird is probably the only anime in my LD collection so far, with the possible exception of the Dirty Pair TV-series, that I haven’t watched in any shape, way or form before actually getting it. As a whole, it’s a pretty nice series, but the later two episodes, while trying to build up tension and be all serious-like (well, not really) wasn’t as enjoyable to me as the first two. Specifically, episode two is my favorite by a clear margin. It’s the most consistently animated, having lots of good key frames, introduces two new likeable characters and out of all four LDs is the only CAV one. Which is weird since both episode three & four clocks in about 30 minutes as well. Also, 3 & 4 has a different art direction where the girls doesn’t have the same colorful hair and the drawing style is slightly changed as well. Still, quite enjoyable for what’s it worth. : )

Also, yes, my bedsheets have an elephant-theme going on. You are now jealous.

Until next time.

Mini review: Scart to HDMI 1080p scaler.

I’ve got a pretty big loot post coming up, but before that I want to share my experiences with one of those scart to HDMI upscalers in a little mini review of sorts.
If you’re interested in reading more about scalers & gaming, here’s a great site to check out!

You see, the CRT TV I’ve been using for retro gaming & LD watching isn’t actually all that great. It’s a big, chunky 32” widescreen Sony WEGA CRT that 99% percent of the time only gets feed with 4:3 content. It’s got the wrong shape for the job, really. Also, when viewing a 4:3 image on it, it squishes the edges, ever so slightly. Once you notice it, you will see it every time though. It’s especially evident in horizontal scrolling games but also any time a movie or whatever pans horizontally.
One simple solution would be to get another CRT TV, and that is a solution I’ve been thinking of for a while but haven’t been able to go through with. There is two reasons for this:
1) People often don’t specificate what TV it is they’re selling. “Sony CRT” will be the most detailed description you will see. Also, almost never any pictures of the back or information about the inputs available. They will say if it has scart, because scart is important to people here, but s-video? Composite? Component? No. You simply won’t get that from 99,99% of all sellers looking to get rid of their old, fat TVs.

2) They’re big, heavy and generally cumbersome. I can’t lift one myself and in order to get to my room, you have to climb a set of stairs. Not fun with a TV.

So, I’m kind of looking to save space by getting rid of my current CRT and plug everything back into my LCD TV, the proper way this time. I used to just plug things in and it worked all right, didn’t notice much input lag, but with the PCE I got image problems with interlacing and artfacts in some games.
With a scaler, though, you let it take care of the image from your preferred video source and scaling it up to the native (or close to) resolution of your LCD TV.

Problem is a good scaler, like those home cinema ones, are disturbingly expensive. Though, brand name is part of what you pay for and there happen to be tons of Chinese no-name scalers listed on eBay. So, I tried my luck with one of these, a scart one because what isn’t directly connected to my TV goes into my scart boxes.

Behold, the scaler

This isn’t a proper review, to get that out of the way, I didn’t actually play much with it, as I was more focused on how things would look, would it work at all.
The unit itself feels very solid. It’s got a metal casing and certainly weighs a bit. Setting it up couldn’t be any more simple; Scart goes into the scart socket in the back, HDMI cable goes into the HDMI socket on the front. Add power and you’re done. But what’s the end result? Well, here are some pictures I took:

PS1 - RR 4 - PAL scart

PS1 - GitS - NTSC s-video

PCE - NTSC-J composite to scart

Let’s analyse these, shall we? First up was Ridge Racer 4 running on my PAL PS1 through scart. The result is a bit odd. The image has black borders and isn’t centered. Also slightly squished. Ghost in the Shell was running on my NTSC-J PS one through s-video through scart and as you can see, the scaler didn’t like s-video. No color, just black & white. Although in full screen. PCE then? No. Won’t work. Don’t know why. Technically, it’s a NTSC-J composite signal put through one of those Xbox 360 scart connectors, but running it directly into the composite inputs in my scart switches didn’t change the fact that I got no image.

The best result was achieved by my Laser Disc player, which outputs an NTSC composite signal that goes directly into one of the scart boxes. Still stretched to full screen, however.

This highlights the biggest problem, aside from getting a proper image, everything is mercilessly stretched to 16:9. And for some reason, I can’t change the aspect ratio to 4:3 on my TV. Actually none of the two TV sets I’ve tried this on allowed me to change the aspect ratio to 4:3 once the scaler was powered on.
And therefore, it is to me quite useless. Sadly.

As I stated earlier, there are many many many no-name scalers available on eBay (but also Amazon). It might be worth a shot, but don’t be surprised if you get a similar result. : /

More loot 2011-12-28

Edit: Corrected the part about the Dirty Pair LDs.

Earlier today I picked up a package that was in transit during Christmas. You probably know what to expect by now…

No games this time but an Arcade Card DUO for my…well, DUO. Others in the same group is a bgm collection sort of from the All Purpose Cultural Catgirl Nuku Nuku OVAs, as well the soundtrack for Bubblegum Crisis episode 4 & 7 (I think I should collect all these, I have them as mp3s but they’re good) and finally yet another installment in the Namco Game Sound Express-series. I wonder if I haven’t gotten all the GALAXIAN 3-related ones now – Namco makes (and made) some good music, after all.

And then some more LaserDiscs. First off, the final two episodes from Aozora Shoujotai (801 T.T.S. Airbats). This marks the second OVA series that I’ve completed, the first one being YUA with only 4 episodes. And that’s one of the nice things with OVAs – they’re pretty “easy” to collect thanks to the small number of episodes.

I threw in episode 8 of BGC in there as well. I’d like to complete that series too but thanks to their age (and/or popularity, perhaps?) they can be a bit tricky to track down. Rakuten had a few more but at the moment I thought I’d just concentrate on my favorite episodes. Couldn’t get my hands on ep. 7, sadly.

Lastly, I picked up two LDs from the old Dirty Pair. I’ve seen a bit of before (mostly the OVAs) but not everything. Wasn’t sure exactly what these LDs would contain – it was hard to dig for info. Now with them in my hands, I can see that both of these (Dirty Pair Masterpiece Compilation +1 & Dirty Pair Complete +1) contains episodes from the 80s TV-series. However, the episodes they contain seem to be a bit random and doesn’t correspond to the order in which they aired. According to wikipedia anyway.

I wonder what the +1 stands for though…hmm.

Room progress 2011-12-18

Took some time but things are looking pretty good now. Not all things have found a new place yet, some stuff are still packed down (most of my drawing supplies, for example). But something like this is what I had in mind.
There isn’t that much to say so I just thought I’d drop some pictures instead…

The old room layout:

A couple of problems with the old layout was that, while quite comfy, the drum set ate a lot of space and the CRT was both in the way for a door and not exactly useful anywhere. The computers you see there aren’t really in use just…stuffed under there because I didn’t have another place for them (still don’t). My computer was downstairs.

Times like this, it feels like I have too many consoles – but then I remember that no, one can’t have too many consoles.

The new room layout:

It would make sense to have the desk face the wall but I’d rather look out through the window and over the room given a choice. Maybe I’ll change my mind later, we’ll see. My CRT now has a proper use (but it might be replaced in the foreseeable future – I’d rather a 4:3 one) and my game systems are split up between the two TV sets. I also moved up my computer and picked up a second screen, and some other things, quite cheap.

Oh and I moved the bed, got new lightning and another rug.

The room feels a bit more practical now – maybe a bit odd-looking but practical. : )

Oh, and one last thing, I’m working on a picture in time for christmas this year as well but things aren’t looking that hot at the moment. I’ve been busy with both the room and other things and I’m not sure I like what I’m working on…we’ll just have to see what happens.

Some SEGA stuff

I recently got into my head that a VGA box or similar for the Dreamcast would be nice and quickly leaped to eBay and made a purchase. It arrived yesterday, from England in what..a week or less? That’s certainly impressive.

There’s a noticeable increase in image quality but sadly I also experience some sort of faint vertical lines on all displays I’ve tested this on, save for an old HP CRT. There seems to be quite a number of other people on the internet reporting the same issue, and with different boxes/cords to boot.

Not sure what to do really… I don’t know if a VGA cable of higher quality would solve it. One of the LCDs I tested it with stated that the image was 680×480 60hz but the older CRT said 59hz and that worked fine. Soo…maybe that has anything to with it? I don’t know…we’ll see if a solution pops up…

In related news, I found this while going through some stuff in my room:

I guess it came with my Mega Drive all those years ago…huh.

More oldschool loot

This is my latest haul. The artbooks are by Makino Ryuuichi and Kikuchi Michitaka (also known as Asamiya Kia) respectively. They’re both very nice, though Ryuuichi’s got plenty of saucy content I wasn’t aware of. I don’t really mind though :p
The LD for Gundam 8th MS Team (contains the first two episodes) came with a nice folder/booklet & fold out poster to go with it, which can be studied below.
Other than that, there’s two more soundtracks from Namco Game Sound Express-series as well as some games for PC Engine & one PS1 game : ) That ought to keep me busy….I hope?

I wanted to take some pictures from the books as well but they didn’t come out all that well…so, that’s all you get :>

…56k warning?

MML – Lakeside Town curiosity

In Lakeside Town, or Uptown depending on region, there’s a house hidden behind the TV studio. Okay, not exactly hidden. Anyway, in the western release the girl in front of it will tell you that it is a “computer game school” and she’s totally going to make sweet games like Resident Evil. Right, that’s cute but somehow doesn’t really make sense. I always wondered what the deal with this house was, it felt too detailed to just be something they decided to throw in, especially since you can’t enter it. What does “YAG” mean, anyway?

Turns out, in the original Japanese version, things make a little bit more sense. Well, a little.
Instead of it being a computer game school, the girl says that this is an animation school. She continues with a phone number – “please call if you’re interested”, she says. Okay, still weird. Turns out though, YAG is real and it stands for “Yoyogi Animation Gakuin”.

Here’s the homepage, which also features a student gallery.

So, Capcom and Y.A.G. had tied up. Why? I don’t know, can’t find a proper answer. And apparently they changed it to something else in the PSP-version. I haven’t played it but I want to remember reading it became a cooking school or something – don’t take my word for it :p

But yeah, I just thought I’d share this piece of non-relevant information.