Haruhi and Gundam 00
Three packages just arrived this week. As usual, I had totally forgotten their existence.
Apparently some time during the past few months, I found it within me the sudden urge to preorder both the PS2 and PSP Haruhi game releases, despite the fact that I didn’t actually own a PSP at that point of time. (I do now.) Wow, this is sort of like receiving a belated birthday present from an unknown stranger who broke into my bank account to pay for it.
More pictures after the break.
Suzumiya Haruhi no Tomadoi
Box front
Box back
Box side
DVD case front
DVD case back (crappy photography alert)
The figurine that comes with Suzumiya Haruhi no Tomadoi (PS2) is pretty damn crappy. I’ve seen better gachapon then this sad pathetic excuse for a collectible. Okay, so it’s not that bad, and I’m keeping it in its packaging anyway so it makes no difference. Feh.
Special preorder disc front
Special preorder disc back
The preorder-only disc that comes with the PS2 game is pretty cool. It’s basically the Hare Hare Yukai dance done in full three dee. It’s not long now before cel-shading filters supersede 2D completely. I had of course already seen the dance video on YouTube beforehand, but whatever.
Suzumiya Haruhi no Yakusoku
Box front
Box back
Suzumiya Haruhi no Yakusoku (PSP) comes in a packaging that totally looks like there’s a PSP inside, but there isn’t. It’s just a bunch of useless trinkets made by underpaid labour that will break within five seconds if you ever attempt to ever use them. I just keep mine in their bubble wraps.
UMD case and useless junk
UMD case back
Gundam 00 Singles
Surprsingly, it seems that I actually bought the new Gundam 00 first press singles even though, according to some, I hate the show and shouldn’t be blogging about it. This must be some kind of terrible mistake!
Ash Like Snow – CD case front
Ash Like Snow – CD case back
Friends – CD case front
Friends – CD case back
Ash Like Snow first press comes with Allelujah’s ID card and Friends first press comes with Tieria’s ID card. Unfortunately (or perhaps thankfully) you won’t get to see how they look like here, because I have a policy of not opening my CDs. Japanese labels could sell me nicely-packaged blank CD-Rs and I wouldn’t ever find out. Then again, not pressing the CD probably doesn’t save Sony that much money, so I’ll trust them on this.
Friends also comes with a B2 poster that uses the same illustration of Setsuna as the back of the jewel case.
I guess I’ll just go set the CDs on fire now since apparently I hate G00 very much.
February 19th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Nice post. I love this site.
February 19th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
I wish unknown strangers were in my bank account, sending me gifts.
Or maybe not.
February 19th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
I see you really ordered it.
What’s this uber plugin that allows you to edit comments? Cool.
February 19th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
http://www.raproject.com/wordpress/wp-ajax-edit-comments/
February 19th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
So uh, how are the actual games?
February 19th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
I just started playing the PSP one using a backup copy *cough* on my PSP 3.90 M33-2, still too early to say much. The MotionPortrait technology is pretty damn cool though.
Don’t think I’ll be playing the PS2 one any time soon.
February 19th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Awww man,your short of the Best-Daybreaks Bell!!~!~!~!It comes with G00 stuff too,the single.Im waiting for an album though,I LOVE Larc~
February 20th, 2008 at 12:22 am
I have yet to open my copy of the pre-order PSP game. Guess I will resort to a backup copy *poor attempt at a cough* as well.
February 20th, 2008 at 1:34 am
I’m just curious. You bothered to buy the singles and games, but never actually opened them. Sounds like a weak argument against justifying your downloads with original copies. (Not that you’ve been served with those letters, anyway.)
But if you’re intending to sell away your singles… (^^;)
February 20th, 2008 at 2:29 am
It’s funny to buy CDs and not open them. But why ?
February 20th, 2008 at 3:13 am
Asking out of curiosity: did you get these off of CDJapan?
February 20th, 2008 at 6:15 am
These ‘useless trinkets’ are called feelies. A long lost virtue of western game-companies…
February 20th, 2008 at 6:48 am
Why would I need to open them anyway? I’ve already downloaded them long ago. It’s not like the physical copy sounds/plays any better. It’s called collecting.
I don’t need to justify anything because I don’t find anything morally wrong with p2p piracy. Every cent I spend is money that anime companies wouldn’t have received otherwise if there weren’t BitTorrent.
February 20th, 2008 at 9:25 am
Good point on the piracy bit, but in certain cases people would buy the things. But usually, yeah, companies won’t see the money if illegal downloading didn’t exist anyway, so why bother complaining? But anyway, I won’t get into the issue here =P
Why not the PS2 one anytime soon? Time issues?
Oh, and CDs provide lossless sound unless you downloaded lossless or you can’t tell the difference. So that’s a reason to listen to the actual CDs I guess.
February 20th, 2008 at 9:30 am
The physical copy will play better with all the subtle details than an otherwise lower quality mp3 file. That said, there’s still the other supplements/parts, cd players etcetera..
But still, that’s a great buy. I’ve never had the luxury of things coming to my doorstep. haha. Always have to crawl out and buy.
February 20th, 2008 at 9:57 am
One of the most beautiful things I’ve seen. xD
Too bad I’m poor to collect.
February 20th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
IcyStorm: Of course I was only speaking for myself.
slumber: Not if you download ISOs or FLAC. >_>
February 20th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
I missed the first press. T_T
February 21st, 2008 at 12:23 am
@ Kyon: DarkMirage doesn’t like L’arc~en~Ciel.
The figurine is just an action figure, so there isn’t much I can say about it. Funny that Figma is planning to release another Haruhi action figure according to Danny Choo. What about the Yakusoku one? It’s like gashapon from what I recall?
February 21st, 2008 at 6:50 am
The Yakusoku one is just a gashapon. It’s not very interesting. Figma figures are pretty good, just not this one.
February 21st, 2008 at 7:20 am
I don’t find anything morally wrong with p2p piracy.
LOL, piracy is piracy. You can’t get away from the fact that unauthorised P2P downloading of commercial goods is stealing. When you’re downloading full ISOs and RIPs they’re not just free samples any more. You’re enjoying something that should have been paid for first but oh well. Who cares if it means we don’t have to go begging parents or work for the money? =P
Tonikaku, good on you for supporting the companies.
February 21st, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Stealing implies that I deprived someone of something. How can I deprive them of what they did not have in the first place?
There were only two possible scenarios in the first place:
1. I don’t pirate and I don’t consume.
2. I pirate and consume.
No one loses or gains anything from either action. Except that occasionally in the second case I actually decide to pay for what I like after I pirate them.
I do not watch TV (except CNN and Discovery), I don’t listen to radio and I block online ads. If somehow I were to be prevented from torrenting, then I would simply stop getting exposed to any new music and anime, in which case I would stop caring about them and move on to some other forms of entertainment. I certainly wouldn’t be buying these overpriced pieces of plastic if that happened, especially considering the fact that they aren’t even available in my country.
The only reason why I specified p2p piracy is because commercial pirates actually make money off the act of piracy itself.
Copyright infringement is illegal, but that doesn’t make it theft.
February 22nd, 2008 at 6:14 am
It’s an analogy. In the case of your scenarios, you don’t have to “pirate and consume”. There are such things as free legitimate demos and samples. You can also resort to things like magazines and websites that cover overseas material if you really wanted to learn more so it’s a pretty poor excuse for pirating.
I’m not trying to offend anyone by proving you’re breaking the law here or anything, just that piracy is piracy (or in this case illegal downloads). I think it’s stupid people think they’re doing nothing wrong when they’re downloading commercially available items.
It’s pretty useless to debate piracy on the internet but lets just put it this way. If you were to be charged for all that you have downloaded and archived, I doubt you can reason your way out of it. You know it’s wrong and that’s my point. It’s just that it’s one of those petty crimes in life that doesn’t cause that much of a impact unlike say murders so people think nothing of it.
February 22nd, 2008 at 6:15 am
“Copyright infringement is illegal, but that doesn’t make it theft.”
Thats what I’ve always thought. The stealing analolgy just doesn’t cut it for me.
February 22nd, 2008 at 8:28 am
Well, you would have had to pay to enjoy the full product if you didn’t know anyone or anywhere else who can loan you it so, thanks to piracy a sale is lost. It’s true no shop has lost an actual physical product but it’s pretty much like stealing. “I’ll just “borrow” this and put it back once I’m done. No harm done, no one knows.”
If you really have to be technical then we’ll just say, “copyright infringement” and like DM just said himself, it’s illegal and it’s wrong.
February 22nd, 2008 at 4:35 pm
No one lose any sales because I had zero intentions of buying anything in the first place. I think it’s pretty fallacious to equate downloads to lost sales.
Let’s say I made an animation that is pretty decent and I charge 200 bucks for it. No one is willing to pay for it because obviously it’s overpriced, but it’s good enough such that people spread it illegally. 10,000 people downloaded it illegally for free. I sue all of them and claim damages of 10,000 x 200 = $2,000,000.
They may have broken the law, but do I really deserve that two million bucks? I don’t think so. I would’ve earned close to nothing even if no one downloaded anything.
I don’t understand why people assume that if you download something, you would’ve been willing to pay for it. That’s one huge fallacy. The amount of effort it takes for me to download something is negligible, so I can afford to download crap shows. I certainly wouldn’t pay for them.
When I buy DVDs, I’m paying just for the sentimental and collector value (things that wouldn’t have existed if I didn’t pirate it and watch it beforehand). To me, the video itself is not worth anything.
And I said I don’t see anything morally wrong with this process, because the net effect is that I spend more on the things I like, whereas the alternative would be I spend nothing at all due to a lack of exposure and interest.
On another note, should authors start to equate the number of times their books get loaned out in a library to number of sales lost?
February 22nd, 2008 at 8:43 pm
I’m not presuming someone is willing to buy a product just because they downloaded it. The point is if you really wanted to enjoy the full product you would have had to pay for it if you didn’t know the ways of piracy. Demos, samples and information from sites would have enticed you to do so in the same way you read up about something before considering if it’s “worth a download”.
At least rental services have to pay royalties and the number of physical copies available in circulation at libraries is limited. TV and radio? Well, you have to put up with all the commercial breaks and censorship.
All I wanted to say still, is that it’s wrong. I’m not trying to adjust how wrong it is by going into the details. I see if anyone ever tries to prove you wrong be it you’ve broken the law, you will be demanding a full report from them and appealing in whatever way you can.
On the other hand, it’s good to read some other thoughts and I guess it’s also good you have such seemingly high standards towards matters. Perhaps you should consider taking a course in law at university if you don’t already with your need for details and justification. I’m sure it would prove more satisfactory than coding in which right and wrong of writing statements is clearly defined and how you can tweak code until it works the way you want (if you were considering a computing course).
February 23rd, 2008 at 6:39 am
Being worth a download is not the same as being worth the purchase. The only reason why most anime find an audience is because they are being pirated for free.
The fact is that the distribution technology has made the sales of entertainment as physical products obsolete. It’s worthless now. It continues to exist solely due to the protection of the law and the imperfection of the technology (barrier of entry, time taken to download, etc.).
February 23rd, 2008 at 9:52 am
Good job keeping the fort up (not that I’m attacking or anything!) but I never said “being worth a download is the same as being worth a purchase.” I just said learning about something that sounds fun can compel you to go get a copy be it via piracy (i.e. don’t pay and go through copyright infringement to enjoy the full product) or an actual purchase.
I don’t think physical products are worthless. Just like you mentioned earlier, it has a “sentimental and collector value” to it. Something stored away on your hard drive is much more likely to be forgotten than say something sitting on your shelf which you might pick up again later.
I agree partially online distribution is the way to go but not everyone has the kind of connection to support it or the technological know how like us netizens should any problems arise such as the company software crashing due to incompatible hardware etc. Like you say there are many, many problems to consider before a standard can be reached and frankly, physical products don’t have as many.
February 23rd, 2008 at 2:38 pm
DarkMirage, I need to fortify my knowledge of relativity again. Could you explain why c is the speed limit for a mass accelerating from a speed less than c?
February 23rd, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Dark Mirage, I really wish I had the funds to purchase that kind of stuff… nice.
Are you going to do a review on those games? I might consider getting the Suzumiya Haruhi no Yakusoku game…
February 23rd, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Geez, just send them all over to me if you’ve already downloaded them! And if you want to collect something, why collect something so expensive?
More seriously, did anyone notice that the Ash like Snow cover looked like a thorny thicket?
March 2nd, 2008 at 4:46 pm
I take it those games don’t come out in engrish? o_o;
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:15 pm
sweeeeet~
lol i would’nt mind buying that crappy figurine off you lol
March 9th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Omg, cool! Haruhi FTW!
March 11th, 2008 at 6:06 am
Engrish! hahahahahah… Bit torrent is my all time favorite store for music, movies and games… and Bearshare too
March 13th, 2008 at 5:18 am
Well I picked up the first OST of 00 along with the singles, I even wrote an article about it a while back. I actually really like the OST and Kenji Kawai’s music in general. Best song on it is Setsuna’s theme by the way folks. No desire to pick up any of the Haruhi games though.
Also there isn’t really any link between buying singles and liking a show. The two can be mutually exclusive if you want them to. There have been shows I’ve liked but hated the music (Dancougar Nova) and shows I’ve disliked but like the music (Gundam Wing). If you want to start a bonfire though I wouldn’t advise burning plastic. It tends to be toxic.
April 18th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
I guess I’ll just go set the CDs on fire now since apparently I hate G00 very much.
Give it to me, then.