K-On! (season 1) JP Blu-Ray box coming… also, I’m not dead

TBS’ official K-ON! website announced today the upcoming release of a complete first season Blu-Ray box set for the fifth anniversary of the TV anime. Per ultimatemegax’ translation, it’s sounding like quite the interesting release indeed:

Announced today, the first season of K-On! will be released in a BD-Box on 2014/03/05 for 27,300 yen (w/tax)/ 26,000 yen (w/o tax) covering the first season.

Included in this BD-Box are all 14 episodes on four BDs along with textless openings, textless ending, all 7 Ura-On! episodes, a Toyosaki Aki interview from the AniChannel K-On! feature, and commercial collection. Audio features include a bonus newly made Raji-On! special audio CD, old cast/staff commentaries, and new audio commentaries (Naoko's Room on episodes 8-12 with guests Toyosaki Aki, Yoko Hikasa, Satomi Satou, Minako Kotobuki, and Ayana Taketatsu.

The sets includes a booklet (featuring episode summaries, character designs, production designs, cast/staff messages, etc), 9 postcards (2 key visuals and 7 cover arts), and a special calendar. The 5 discs will have new disc art and fit in a newly drawn 5-side digipak inside a newly drawn 3-sided box.

The set includes BOTH Japanese and ENGLISH subtitles for the main story, Ura-On! episodes, and the Toyosaki Aki interview.

Well – I’m excited. Not only does it appear this release will include all the (on-disc) extras from the single volumes, there’s also going to be some new stuff. And English subtitles. And for a damn good price, too (as far as Japanese anime releases go). Just when I thought I owned enough copies of season 1, sigh…

In other news, guess who hasn’t K-ON! blogged in over eight months? Me, that’s who!! I won’t bother with excuses, nor can I say for sure that I’ll be posting with any great frequency from now on (what can I say? My attention is focused elsewhere these days), but I’ll try to check in a bit more often.

K-On! Blu-Ray US vs. JP review and comparison (vol 4)

The fourth and final volume of K-On! on Blu-Ray (and DVD) arrives in North America on November 29^th (delayed a week from the original release date – an odd choice, since several online stores have already had it in stock for a while). Containing the “final” episode “Light Music!” as well as the two “bonus” episodes “Winter Days!” and “Live House!”, this release finishes up the first season much as one would expect after having seen the previous three volumes – but before I get to that, I’ll have a look at the final Japanese volume.

Volume 7 of the Japanese Blu-Ray release contains the two “bonus episodes” (episode 12, or the “final episode”, was included on the previously discussed sixth volume) and follows the standard set by the series so far. As usual, the disc comes with a number of physical extras, the biggest this time being the big art box intended to hold all seven volumes.

When first opened, it comes with a sort of cardboard wrap-around which extends from inside the box, keeping the Blu-Ray case in place. The part that wraps around the outside of the box displays the cover image of the seventh volume. When this is removed, the remaining six volumes fit nicely inside.

I can’t truthfully say that I think this art box is a thing of beauty, exactly, but hey – at least you get a box in which to keep the BDs, which is more than I can say for the US release. Disappointing, really, considering most markets in which K-On! was released – be it on Blu-Ray or DVD, or both – got one or more nice boxes to house the collection.

Inside the actual Blu-Ray cover this time are some printed promo materials for K-On! related goods, another four page bio (this time with Ui and Nodoka sharing the spotlight), yet more outfits for the paper dolls that came with previous volumes, another version of the “Fuwa Fuwa Time” sheet music, a Ho-kago Tea Time sticker with the newly designed logo on it (see episode 14) and an Azusa guitar pick. The disc art features Mio, and the cover reverse features Azusa.

Disc specs are more or less the same as usual – 51 seconds’ worth of forced, unskippable company logos on startup, a static background menu screen, AVC encoded 1080p video and uncompressed PCM stereo audio, Japanese subtitles. Bonus features include the expected two audio commentaries per episode – one featuring members of the production staff and the other featuring the cast, another Uraon! short (this one about the HTT girls’ winter days) as well as creditless versions of the ending animation sequence and the second opening sequence.

With that out of the way, it’s time to check out Bandai’s US version and see how it fares in comparison. First of all, the cover art is the same as that of the final Japanese volume, fittingly enough.

As before, the US edition comes with absolutely nothing in terms of physical extras. The disc art this time features – as one might guess – Mugi’s keyboard. The company logos on the disc are, mercifully, skippable and the menu follows the established style with clips from the episodes contained on this volume playing in the background.

The episodes themselves are presented again with lossy Dolby Digital audio at 192 kbps which, again, is not at all surprising at this point although it’s still unfortunate. Video looks good for the most part, although there is the occasional ugly banding (in fairness, this is also present on the Japanese disc). The subtitles are good, although there are a couple of oddities – for one thing, during the flashback scene in episode 12 where young Nodoka is seen watching a kids show on TV, the dialogue from the TV is subtitled but at one point they stop translating and say “Kid’s show continues until cut, but it’s ad-libbed”. That’s fine, but why even bother to explain that in the subtitles? The dialogue is inaudible anyway, no one would have noticed. My guess is, this line was never meant to make it into the final disc and someone made a mistake. The second oddity is a little inconsistency in regards to how the title and the phrase “Fuwa Fuwa Time” is handled. In previous volumes, and in episode 12 here; it is left untranslated. In episode 14, however, it’s subtitled as “Fluffy Time”. Now, I have no problem with the fact that they give the song an English name – after all, they did the same with the other HTT songs so it’s actually rather strange that they didn’t do it for this one until now – it’s just puzzling that, well, they did it at this point.

As before, the disc contains absolutely none of the bonus features from the Japanese Blu-Ray. Bandai confirmed on Twitter recently that they “weren’t allowed to” include the textless opening and ending sequence, and it stands to reason that the same is true for the other extras as well. This is very unfortunate indeed, as it ensures that the only bonus features on here are the ones produced by Bandai themselves and thus only of (possible) interest to dub fans. In other words, there is nothing here for fans of the original version, like myself.

As for what is here – well, I won’t criticize it too harshly because it’s better than nothing, and I know there are some people who do enjoy this stuff though I can not for my dear life understand how. We get a “music video” (read: a senseless montage of random clips from the episodes on this volume) of an English version of “Brush Pen, Ballpoint Pen”. Oddly, the song is not performed by Cristina Vee even though it’s Mio who sings this song in the anime. I can’t quite place the voice that is singing – if it’s Stephanie Sheh, which is the most likely candidate, then I have to say she fails pretty hard at singing with Yui’s voice, if she is even attempting to do so. She sounds absolutely nothing like Yui, even American!Yui, here. Next we get an interview with Shelby Lindley, the American dub voice for Mugi, in which she is asked the same boring questions as the other three cast members were asked in their interviews. Finally, there’s the same trailers for other anime DVD releases as the first three volumes contained.

Screenshot comparisons: (Japanese BD first, US BD second)

This marks the end of Bandai Entertainment’s American release of K-On!’s first season, and although it has been disappointing in some regards it’s still nice to finally have it complete. And I, for one, hope that a license of the second season won’t be too far behind.

K-On! Blu-Ray US vs. JP review and comparison (vol 3)

The third volume of Bandai Entertainment’s North American K-On! release is here, which means it’s time to have a look and see how it fares in comparison to the original Japanese Blu-Ray discs. The episodes on this volume are culled from two of the Japanese discs, so I’ll be looking at both of those before moving on to the Bandai version.

The fifth Japanese volume comes in the usual pink Blu-Ray case and contains two episodes, #9 “New Club Member!” and #10 “Training Camp Again!”. These episodes concern themselves primarily with the introduction and gradual integration into the Light Music Club of new member Azusa Nakano, or “Azu-nyan” as she is soon nicknamed by Yui. The opening sequence has been updated to include footage of the newcomer, and a second guitar has been subtly added to “Cagayake!GIRLS” to indicate her part in the band. Nice touch.

At this point, I’d like to bring up the fact that the textless version of the first opening (sans Azusa) was included as a bonus feature on the Japanese volume 4 BD, something I neglected to mention in my review. Just another feature missing from the US release…

Speaking of bonus features, though – what does this volume have to offer? Well, for starters; there’s another four page character bio, this time about Mio. The Mio theme continues with this volume’s guitar pick (Mio depicted on one side, the K-On! logo on the other), another piece of “Fuwa Fuwa Time” sheet music with Mio’s scribbles on it, and the cover reverse features her as well.

Breaking with the Mio theme, however, is the Azusa paper doll (which makes sense, as Mio’s paper doll was included in volume 3), the cat ear sticker and the disc art, which features Mugi feasting on a delicious snack.

In terms of on-disc extras, there are the usual two audio commentaries per episode, this time with Ayana Taketatsu permanently joining the cast commentary. The Uraon! short this time is called “Deserted Island” and has the Light Music Club stranded on a… deserted island, apparently for real.

Moving on to volume 6; this volume again features two episodes, but only one of them – #11 “Crisis!” is included on Bandai’s volume 3, leaving episode 12 for the future fourth and final volume.

The cover reverse this time features Mugi, but the physical extras otherwise don’t have a specific character theme. The bio this time is for Azusa, the guitar pick features Ui and the “Fuwa Fuwa Time” sheet is Mugi’s. There is no new paper doll, but maid outfits for each of the five paper dolls included in previous volumes (does anyone actually use those for anything?). Finally, in honor of the Light Music Club’s band finally being named in this volume, there’s a sticker with that name on it.

Oddly, it is spelled “Houkago Tea Time” here, which – while not technically incorrect – is not how the name is usually romanized on official merchandise. On CD singles and other relevant products, the name has always been spelled “Ho-kago Tea Time”, which is why I will be using that name (and not the other spelling, or any variation of “After School Tea Time” as the English versions call it – although the original manga occasionally references that name), or just HTT.

Moving on, the disc art features Azusa enjoying a snack with her new “name” on it. Bonus materials include cast commentary and staff commentary, as usual, and an Uraon! short in which the club members imagine each other as animals. Yeah.

As always, the Japanese Blu-Ray discs feature each episode in glorious looking AVC encoded 1080p with lossless linear PCM stereo audio. No complaints there.

Now then – let’s look at the Bandai release, which contains three episodes instead of the usual four and comes at a slightly reduced price because of it.

The cover is taken from the Japanese volume 6, which is fine, although I personally would have preferred it if they had gone with the volume 5 cover (if only because that back-reference in a later episode will now be lost on American viewers if and when season 2 eventually gets a US release). That’s a minor point, though, and not a legitimate complaint.

As usual, there is nothing in terms of physical extras, nor is there anything else inside the cover besides the Blu-Ray disc itself. The disc art continues the instruments trend from previous US volumes, with Ritsu’s drum kit on display this time.

The main menu screen features clips from the three episodes contained on the disc, accompanied by the usual piece of music. The episodes themselves are presented in glorious looking AVC encoded 1080p, but with lossy Dolby Digital 192 kbps audio for both the original Japanese track and the English dub. Speaking of which; some may feel relieved to know that the English dialogue – both in the dub and in the subtitles – retain the name “Azu-nyan” rather than change it to “Azu-meow” as the English version of the manga did.

Bonus features include a six minute interview with the Cassandra Lee, the English voice of Ritsu, in which she is asked those typical boring questions to which no interesting answers exist (I don’t mean to be a jerk, but honestly; why do they think I have any interest in knowing the name of Cassandra Lee’s best friend?!) as well as a frankly terrible English version of “My Love is a Stapler” (aka. “Watashi no Koi wa Hotchkiss”).

There’s also the usual trailers for other Bandai releases, the same ones as on previous volumes. Normally I’d say these don’t count as bonus features but in all honesty I’d rather watch the trailer for “The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya” for the umpteenth time than Bandai’s original K-On! extras. If only they’d include at least some of the bonus features from the Japanese discs… Something, anything. Oh well…

On the other hand, extra features are just that; extra. The episodes themselves are obviously the reason to buy this Blu-Ray, and the episodes themselves look great and sound decent. With three out of four volumes out now, there is only the fourth and final volume to wait for before the first season of K-On! is complete.

Finally; here are some screenshot comparisons between the Japanese Blu-Ray and the US version (Japanese screens first, US screens under). Can you see a difference?

K-On! Blu-Ray US vs. JP review and comparison (vol 2)

So, let’s have a look at the second volume of Bandai’s North American release of K-On!. As with the first volume, I’ll be comparing it to the Japanese versions, but I’ll say this up front: If you’ve seen Volume 1, then you should know what to expect from Volume 2 in terms of quality and extras.

The cover picture is taken from the Japanese volume 2, although the episodes on the disc do not correspond to that release. It doesn’t really matter, though, as the picture is not really relevant to any specific episodes.

The disc art continues the instruments theme from the previous disc, and features a picture of Mio’s bass. Again, there is nothing else to be found inside the case other than the Blu-Ray disc itself.

The disc opens again with the standard FBI piracy warning and the Bandai logo. Not skippable, but fast forwarding works if you’re impatient. The menu screen is much like the first, with the same music and visual style. The featured clips, however, are new ones from the episodes contained on this disc, that is; episodes numbers five through eight.

Audio is still lossy Dolby Digital 192 Kbps, but the video looks very good for the most part. There were a few shots with obvious and annoying color banding, but since this is present on the Japanese version as well, I can only assume it is a flaw inherent in the material itself and not a problem with the video encoding on either Blu-Ray release.

I watched the video with subtitles on, and the English dialogue is quite good in my opinion. I got distracted at one point, however, when Ritsu addresses Mugi as “Mugi” (like always), and the subtitles have her say “Tsumugi” instead – and then “Mugi-chan” about a second later. Another thing I found a bit odd was that the title of the song, “Fuwa Fuwa Time” is left untranslated yet when episode eight comes along and Ritsu reads the set list, the other three songs all get English titles (“Curry, Then Rice”, “My Love is a Stapler” and “Brush Pen, Ballpoint Pen”). Not that I have a problem with it, necessarily, I was more annoyed that the (green) subtitles of Stapler’s lyrics remain on top of the screen throughout the song rather than at the bottom. The subtitles used when playing the dub don’t have this problem, as there aren’t any dialogue subtitles with which to compete for space.

Not surprisingly, none of the Japanese bonus materials have been carried over. Which means, any extras on here will have been original Bandai productions and of interest to dub fans only. We get a seven minute interview with Cristina Vee, who does the English voice for Mio. As with the Stephanie Sheh interview on Vol. 1, it begins with the typical predictable questions (“How do you resemble your character,” etc.) but eventually transitions to other topics.

The other extra is an English dubbed version of “Fuwa Fuwa Time”. A welcome treat for dub fans, I’m sure, as the songs are left in their original Japanese performed by the original voice cast within the episodes themselves (other than scenes where the girls practice in the club room, in which the American voice cast sing their lines in Japanese… weird). It’s listed as a “music video” so I was expecting it to be the music video style performance from the episode, just dubbed, but instead it’s a video pieced together from random clips from all eight episodes released thus far. It runs for a little over a minute, so obviously it’s not the full song but rather the shortened version used in the episode.

In order to compare this release to the Japanese one, we need to look at both the third and the fourth Japanese volume as they only contain two episodes per disc. Episodes five (“Adviser!”) and six (“School Festival!”) are found on Vol. 3:

Unlike the blank inside of the US cover, the third Japanese volume features drawings of Sawako. The disc art features her munching on a snack.



Don't eat it! Can't you read?

Aside from the Blu-Ray, we are given a four-page Sawako Yamanaka biography, a black guitar pick with the K-On! logo on one side and Sawako’s face on the other, a Death Devil sticker, a Mio paper doll and what appears to be sheet music for “Fuwa Fuwa Time” with scribbles all over it. Presumably, it’s supposed to belong to one of the K-On! girls.

The Blu-Ray, as usual, features lossless PCM audio, Japanese subtitles, two audio commentaries per episode and another “Uraon!” episode. This one is called “Mio’s Panties” and revolves around, well, Mio’s panties.

Episodes 7 (“Christmas!”) and 8 (“Freshmen Reception!”) are part of Volume 4:

Ui is the subject of this volume’s disc art and the inside of the cover. Physical extras include a Tsumugi bio, Mugi pick, Mugi paper doll, a sticker with the instrument symbols from the opening sequence, another scribbled-on piece of “Fuwa Fuwa Time” sheet music and a printed promo for the K-On! Desktop Accessories.

Specs are the same as previous volumes. The “Uraon!”  this time is called “Chibi Yui-chan” and has Ui reminiscing about her sister’s childhood.

As I mentioned in the Volume 1 comparison, the Japanese Blu-Ray discs are ridiculously expensive. Keeping that in mind, it makes sense they’d have more to offer in terms of extras than the US release. It’s disappointing that the latter doesn’t get the same quality audio, though, but at least with this volume there is no music replacement to put up with. As for video quality, here are some comparison shots. Japanese screenshot on top, US screenshot below.

 

"Hey! That's not food!"





"Must... kill... demon!"





The crowd turns angry when it becomes apparent there won't be any fanservice.



 

"See this? This is the color a Blu-Ray case is SUPPOSED to have!"





It's not your imagination... it really is staring into your soul.

And there you have it!