Shelf Life

Hairy Situations

Shelf Worthy

Le Chevalier D'Eon

Naruto Uncut Boxset 2

Paradise Kiss v.2

Rental

Shinobi

Bobobo-Bo-Bo-Bobo v.1

Perishable

None this week

Back when I was in high school, the X-Files ruled my world. Every Sunday night at 8PM MT, friends were not allowed to call. 8PM was X-Files o'clock, and that one hour time slot was sacred to me. After the last episode was aired, I felt so forlorn and empty that I desperately tried to cling to something else. Alias was fun, but it didn't quite get the job done.

Fortunately, 24 was there to save me. It was the only thing that filled the void in my heart, with its crazy action and ridiculous suspense. If there was one person who could fill the Mulder/Scully double-punch combo in my life, it was Keifer. Flash forward to now, and the only thing I can think about while writing this column is the next episode of 24. What's going to happen??? The suspense is killing me, and anyone who's been following this season (and happens to enjoy it so far, as I am) knows exactly the predicament I'm facing.

Augh. Welcome to Shelf Life.

[TOP]

On the other end of the “classy” spectrum is a show that's just outright weird. I had heard rumors that Bo-Bobo-Bo-Bo-Bobo was bizarre and decently funny, but I had never bothered watching it before. That is, until the first volume of the uncut series came floating to my door.

Illumitoon's release of Beet the Vandal Buster does—dubtitles. Honestly, there is no point in releasing the Japanese language version of something if you're not going to translate it. This isn't just some trivial detail, either. There're quite a few things wrong with the ones on this disc. Some of the lines aren't even close to being properly translated. I don't claim to be anywhere near fluent in Japanese, but I know for a fact that some of the dub dialogue is completely different from the Japanese. (I know this because when there are subtitles when there is 2 minutes of silence… something is a bit off.) This could be understandable if they even bothered putting the proper translation on there, but wait! Where are the subtitles? Oh, that's right! They're just closed-captions of the dub!! Some of the subtitles were very poorly encoded and timed, especially near the end of the first episode. All of the subs would be clumped together on the left side of the screen, showing lines that wouldn't be uttered for another 15 seconds. And by the time they were uttered, the “subtitles,” of course, would no longer be there. No, seriously, dubtitling is not cool. This is the second Illumitoon disc where I have been extremely unhappy about the disc itself. They didn't bother changing the music this time to make it appeal to kids (perhaps it's different on the edited release?), but they're still not doing any purist fans a favor either by not bothering with giving a proper translation, or even decent dubtitles. So why bother? Since it is a kids' show, I'd rather Illumitoon just release a dub DVD and market it for kids. Really. Because honestly, how many adults are there who are actually banging on the doors of Best Buy at 9 o'clock, desperate for the next volume of Bo^7? Granted, it probably costs them no money to just stick a Japanese dialogue track on there, but really, why bother? They're just toying with the few people out there who, for whatever reason, did want to collect this show subbed. In any case, the show itself is kind of hilarious. It's amazing in that kind of Johnny Bravo meets… I don't quite know how to describe it. The hero of the show is Bo-Bobo-Bo-Bo-Bobo, a man whose golden afro and beefy pecs are almost frightening to behold. His secret ability is being able to hear the cries of hair follicles. As such, he is a champion of hair, going as far as to use whip-like nostril and armpit hairs as his main weapons (some of which even come armed with the Boogy Brigade!). His enemy is anyone who doesn't appreciate a full lock of hair, or uses generic-brand conditioner, such as Csar Blady Bald 4th, who wants the entire world to give up their hair. For the most part, Bo^7 is rather entertaining in short doses. After awhile, the humor gets to be a little old and a bit forced, but it's the kind of show that was made for sleep-deprived TV watching. I don't know that it's worth owning, but it's worth catching an episode or two, just for giggles.[TOP]

Alas, after staring at goofy puffy-headed burlymen for two hours, my mind once again drifted back to 24. Oh, Keifer, how I wish I was watching you torture people right now! I can't even focus on anime right now. It's times like these that I wish I had the next volume of Chevalier D'Eon, or more episodes of my favorite underrated show, Yugo the Negotiator. But no. All I've got to tide me over until Monday night is nostril hair.

In a panic, I reached for the closest violence-splattered disc I could find—[TOP]

I've always enjoyed watching ninja shows and ninja movies, though. Partially because I almost feel like it's a genre of its own. We have our obsession with superheroes. They have ninjas. Though, to be frank, I think Batman could kick the crap out of any ninja, any day. Yes, ninjas can do everything he can, but it's all about the style points, and if Batman doesn't have an abundance of style points, then I don't know what the hell he has. Naruto, on the other hand, has no style. He has guts, but no style.

Luckily, Shonen Jump shows are all about having guts over style. In fact, if they were to have a new tagline, it should be something along the lines of: “Because we have guts” (versus something more true to form, like, “We have scrappy youngsters who don't know when to quit.”). Luckily, Naruto's going to need all the guts he can muster if he wants to be ready for the Chuunin exam.

[TOP]

Now may actually be a good time to it that I've managed to misplace a good number of my DVDs. I know they're in my room, because discs don't quite have the ability to flee on their own, but since I made an effort to organize my room by dumping everything into a corner (including a small mountain of anime DVDs), I can't seem to locate several of my discs. They're in the pile, to be sure, but their whereabouts have eluded a few attempts at search and rescue. Needless to say, I really wanted to review more Disgaea, and what not, but uh… I can't find them right now. NEXT TIME, they'll get theirs.

[TOP]

In any case, my time's up for this week. Hope to see you in two weeks!

Last week's DVD collection was pretty impressive. However, this week's is nothing to scoff at, either. Presenting, B. Zellers! He claims that quite a few are at his dorm, but even so, he's sitting pretty at over 700 anime DVDs!

And amongst his live-action DVDs... is that Stargate SG-1 I see (and Macguyver?!?!)? Someone needs to give this man a prize for being awesome. Personally, I just really like those shelves. Half of my anime is stowed in giant plastic bins—way uncool.

If you have pictures of your anime collection you want to show off, send 'em over to shelflife at animenewsnetwork dot com!