'Shouldn't you be driving like a DIFFERENT kind of idiot??' by Kara
Monday, April 21, 2008 at 6:13 AM

My bad mood from the weekend seems to have calmed down for a bit, thank God. Or else I wouldn't be getting anything done today. I am madly efficient when pissed off, but I also get tired if it goes on for a couple days.

So, the Gurren-Lagann saga continues. No, they're not making a second series. Bandai has sniped it out from under ADV and will be -- get this -- rushing a sub-only version out this summer.

Yah.

They will be offering a dub eventually, but not 'til 2009 and not the ADV cast. Personally, I have no opinion on the decision to not use the ADV cast. I may like various VAs as people, but I'm not particularly a fan of any of them and probably wouldn't buy the dub version, anyway. No offense to the voice acting community or whatsit. We all know that, for the most part (unless something dynamically clever and awesome rolls along), it's just not my bag.

Well, ADV's not gonna last long in this day and age, is it? It's actually happening -- what I talked about before. Yup. Competition between pro studios re: speed and quality. This is interesting, ne? Yep, not only have they just yoinked it and promised a release three months from now (because, see, you can do that when you do sub-only), they're also promising us a better dub. Well, okay, they haven't said as much, but seeing as voice actors tend not to 'belong' to a studio ... well, all right, I could be completely and embarrassingly unaware of some sort of contractual thing, but from here with my limited knowledge, it seems interesting.

So that's good, on the one hand.

On the other, as a few have pointed out, this is Bandai. Bandai, who are putting out Super Robot Wars: Divine War for $40+ a DVD. Bandai, who charge double for DVDs of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya in case you want them in broadcast order rather than lame chronological order and don't want the 'special edition' extras. (Granted, Top o Nerae! was put out by Bandai Visual under a vanity name, but they're still charging $55 for it now. I got it cheaper when it first came out.)

So I have no earthly idea how this'll turn out. Will we get the sort of swifty nice inexpensive-but-quality sub-only release I've seen gearing up from RightStuf? I can't recall as Bandai has done a sub-only release before, so I have no idea what their standards are on that.

I would like to buy it eventually ... and it looks like they're thinking of the fans ... so I'm gonna give them the benefit of the doubt 'til I see the first volume this summer.

If you have been, don't try it.