This morning I had a quick check on eBay for PD-related stuff to see if anything interesting had popped up, and I came across the following auction for the Panzer Dragoon anime on DVD:
The strange thing is that I don’t remember hearing anything about this being released on DVD before; I was thinking of picking this up as a random collectible, but after a quick look at the seller’s feedback it looks like they deal in pirate / copied DVDs, so that doesn’t seem like such a good idea after all. I’m curious though, where was the Panzer Dragoon anime actually released on DVD? Has anyone heard about this before, and does anyone own this version of it?
Probably a bootleg- I have seen a dvd version at anime and comic book conventions- it looks very similar- I’m sure the image quality is just ripped from vhs.
It’s really just as bad? I would buy it anyway, just so I could have more PD stuff. I can’t because I’m in the USA and I don’t have any PAL-viewy thingamabober.
Last week I noticed a different eBayer selling these DVDs, and at a cheaper price this time, so I went ahead and bought one out of curiosity. The disc arrived yesterday, and it does appear to be a bootleg after all, but not an overly shabby one. It does have both English and Japanese audio (with optional English subtitles), and watching it without the English voice acting is significantly less unpleasant in my opinion. Saying that, the subtitles do have fairly Engrishy spelling and grammar, but as the English script sounds pretty unnatural anyway I didn’t think this made it appreciably worse.
The disc does have one bit of extra content on it, which is a short slideshow where development sketches are blended into scenes from the finished film. I thought this was slightly curious because I haven’t seen these particular sketches before, not even in the OVA companion book (that came out in Japan). I suspect this is actual bonus content from one of the official Japanese releases, either the video or the laser disc (as it has some Japanese text preceeding it), but either way, it isn’t anything to get excited about.
Oh, and for the record, here’s some scans of the thing:
When I watched the OVA this time I actually noticed something that I’d completely overlooked before, too: why that Imperial captain becomes “possessed” and tries to kill Kyle. Was anyone else confused by that at first…?
Ah, that’s slightly odd; I’ve just checked, and that sequence doesn’t appear on the PAL video at all. Another reason I thought it’d have been Japanese-only is because, on the DVD, that slideshow bit has Japanese singing in the background; is the US version like that too?
Just out of curiosity, how much does the disc go for? I’m mildly interested in it, if just for the sake of having it. But definately not something I’d be willing to spend much for.
Also, there’s actually an official soundtrack for the OVA. Funny thing is, it has almost 50 minutes of music on it, even though the show is only 30 minutes long.
I got it for ?7.49 including P&P (about $13.50 overall), which isn’t really all that cheap; I was basically just curious to see what it was. I’ve heard of that OST too, although I haven’t seen a copy of it up for sale anywhere or even come across any MP3s from it, so I’m not sure what that fifty minutes would consist of. I seem to remember that it was also done by Yoshitaka Azuma, though (composer of the actual PD1 soundtrack).
