05-25-2009, 01:46 AM
Encountered this in the Anime Room at Penguicon back at the beginning of the month. Ended up laughing so hard I almost hurt myself (admittedly, seeing it cold
in a room full of punch-drunk sleep-deprived MST3K-ing fen probably amplified the affect, but still). So I ended up putting it in my Netflix qeue and bumped
it to #1. And thereby hangs a tale....
Basically, for some reason, all the Netflix has is "Season 1, Part2", discs 1 and 2. Except the labels pressed on the discs say "Disc 2 and
Disc 3". Disc 1, I mean 2, I mean... gah. Anyway,the earlier disc has episodes 8-13, and the next disc has episoded 14-20. Okay, fine. But these are
the ONLY two discs that Netflix has. Where are Episodes 1-7? And any episodes past 20?
Going to Amazon and Ebay doesn't help -- the naming conventions for this series's discs seems to be uncertain and/or uneven. And at nearly $40 for one
disc, I'd rather not experiment. Anybody familiar with what's going on here who can help me out a bit?
Okay, enough about the DVDs. The series itself is just downright popcorn-eating parody fun. The "elevator pitch" for this might boil down to
"Schreck as applied to (reverse) harem shojo anime tropes." The characters manage to be complete parodies
of their standard reverse-harem comedy roles without becoming 2D or cardboard, and in fact have depth that lies
outside their role without turning the series (yet) into anything threatening to get serious. There's just enough depth here to keep you coming back and
looking for more, but every near-serious moment is promptly skewered by cheefully waaaay-over-the-top parodies of the standard tropes.
And the dub work is... magnificent. They even re-dubbed the OP music and it works. I think it actually improves on
the original (then again, I *am* biased in favor of lyrics I can understand). Caitlin Glass manages to convey an utterly deadpan female lead without falling
into Rei Ayanami territory -- Haruhi (no, not THAT Haruhi) is very cerebral, detached, sardonic, but not uninvolved or emotionally flat. She just doesn't
get emotional over most of the things that girls her age do. Haruhi is, simply, very emotionally mature -- she just
doesn't sweat the small stuff.
Except, she skipped straight from grade-schooler to adult, emotionally. And now she's surrounded by a gang of utterly carefree (and, in her opinion, none
too bright) bishies who are all competing for her attentions (which she has no interest in)... and they're, ever so slowly, starting to get to her. Of
course, she seems to be getting them to grow up a bit, too....
in a room full of punch-drunk sleep-deprived MST3K-ing fen probably amplified the affect, but still). So I ended up putting it in my Netflix qeue and bumped
it to #1. And thereby hangs a tale....
Basically, for some reason, all the Netflix has is "Season 1, Part2", discs 1 and 2. Except the labels pressed on the discs say "Disc 2 and
Disc 3". Disc 1, I mean 2, I mean... gah. Anyway,the earlier disc has episodes 8-13, and the next disc has episoded 14-20. Okay, fine. But these are
the ONLY two discs that Netflix has. Where are Episodes 1-7? And any episodes past 20?
Going to Amazon and Ebay doesn't help -- the naming conventions for this series's discs seems to be uncertain and/or uneven. And at nearly $40 for one
disc, I'd rather not experiment. Anybody familiar with what's going on here who can help me out a bit?
Okay, enough about the DVDs. The series itself is just downright popcorn-eating parody fun. The "elevator pitch" for this might boil down to
"Schreck as applied to (reverse) harem shojo anime tropes." The characters manage to be complete parodies
of their standard reverse-harem comedy roles without becoming 2D or cardboard, and in fact have depth that lies
outside their role without turning the series (yet) into anything threatening to get serious. There's just enough depth here to keep you coming back and
looking for more, but every near-serious moment is promptly skewered by cheefully waaaay-over-the-top parodies of the standard tropes.
And the dub work is... magnificent. They even re-dubbed the OP music and it works. I think it actually improves on
the original (then again, I *am* biased in favor of lyrics I can understand). Caitlin Glass manages to convey an utterly deadpan female lead without falling
into Rei Ayanami territory -- Haruhi (no, not THAT Haruhi) is very cerebral, detached, sardonic, but not uninvolved or emotionally flat. She just doesn't
get emotional over most of the things that girls her age do. Haruhi is, simply, very emotionally mature -- she just
doesn't sweat the small stuff.
Except, she skipped straight from grade-schooler to adult, emotionally. And now she's surrounded by a gang of utterly carefree (and, in her opinion, none
too bright) bishies who are all competing for her attentions (which she has no interest in)... and they're, ever so slowly, starting to get to her. Of
course, she seems to be getting them to grow up a bit, too....
or at least most of it. I didn't dig through to double check its ALL there