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PSN store

If you haven't known already, Sony teamed up with Funimation to offer anime on their newly launched video store for the PS3. Also is SCEI's right to Bonen no Xamdu. I'm pretty sure that this is only for the United States since Canadians were stating that they had no video stores at all. Sony seem to be ignoring all the other English-speaking countries. I do feel bad just a bit. Among the inital anime offered are:

Afro Samurai
Astro Boy
Basilisk
Burst Angel
Desert Punk
Gunslinger Girl
Kiddy Grade
Moon Phase
Samurai 7
Trinity Blood
Xam'd: The Lost Memories <--- Bonen no Xamdu
Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles

All anime besides Bonen are English-dubbed.

All anime offered is currently only rental, which is a bummer. Hopefully they will add in purchase for keeps somewhere down the line. It should be noted also that the only one with HD rental is Bonen no Xamdu.

Bonen no Xamdu - $2.99 for SD, $3.99 for HD
All other anime - $1.99 for SD

I rented Bonen no Xamdu episode 1 HD at 8:00, the filesize is 1520 MB.
Sony's policy for rentals is



You can immediately start watching the anime without having to complete download from 1%.

SONY
Sony is translating since Sony Music and SCEI are collaborating with BONES on the anime's production.

Hopefully, maybe we will see Sony licensing it for the U.S. for disc distribution and releasing the series on Blu-ray since they do have HD.

As of right now, I'm not a big fan of rentals. I like to keep my stuff, but was willing to give it all a try and was excited to watch the opening episode.

For the high price of 4 bucks, you are actually paying for exclusivity since only PS3 owners/friends can watch it while even the Japanese have to wait until the Fall!

FOR HD:
13 episodes - 52 bucks to rent and see entire series
26 episodes - 104 bucks which is hella expensive.



THE BEGINNING

I even went as far as taking a picture of this momentous occasion. Sexy right? lol

I'm waiting until it at least hit 80% completed before I begin watching since I don't want to be interrupting by the buffering sign.

Sony unfortunately didn't add 'remaining time left' indicator so I have to guess. It might be completed around 12 to 1ish.

Started 8:00 AM
8:34 AM - 242/1520MB 16% done
9:48 AM - 642/1520MB 42% done
10:13 AM - 734/1520MB 48% done
11:13 AM - 1019/1520MB 67% done
11:34 AM - 1135/1520MB 74% done
12:12 PM - 1343/1520MB 88% done
1:00 PM - completed

I'm surprised that it's actually going reasonably fast given my connection. Sony apparently plopped down some money for some fast servers for their video store. Can't say the same for the game store since everything is slow as hell there.





BONEN NO XAMDU IMPRESSION -don't worry, doesn't contain spoilers-

Karaoke - Both OP and ED are in English. OP is a nice fast, catchy song. ED is a slow song.
Subtitle - Nice white text with black outline. Looks to be the Arial font. I hate all the colors and jazz that fansubbers add to their type so just having minimalistic subtitles is great. Another great thing is that they didn't censor words like who** or bi***.
Bright, vivid colors - Similar to that of Eureka Seven.
Animation - Great, what else did you expect from BONES? Especially the transformation sequence, thing of beauty!

Story - I don't even know. Stuff happened, stuff exploded. Too early to tell since it is episode one afterall.
Character - There looks to be a merry band of pirate where our main protaganists will end up with... You know where they all 'fight the system.' Once again similar to Eureka Seven. The probable main focus will be on Akiyuki and Haru. Akiyuki is our main male protaganist while Haru is the main female protaganist. Haru will probably be Akiyuki's main love interest. I can already see another female could probably cause a love triangle.

Akiyuki - He is not Renton's clone though. Akiyuki looks far stronger than Renton and is not the typical 'weak, sensitive' stereotype. Once again, his transformation sequence was awesome.

Haru - I gotta comment on how she looks because, well, I'm a guy after all. Yeah, she's hot. Nice blue eyes hehe. She's kinda that really fun girl to be around with at school, you know what I'm talking about. Yeah...

------------
I said that I was going to continue renting, but I'm really conflicted now since episode one got me really pumped and ended that I went 'that's it? I want more!' I have to catch myself though because renting is lame and if Sony were to offer purchases in the future, then I should keep my hard-earned money until then. I'm in quite a situation.

Probably having an entire 13 episode series on Blu-ray with a crisp, vibrant picture would be what I wish for. -don't know if it could fit..- I might be a newbie with all the high-tech jargon, but I can definitely tell the difference when I plop in Paprika DVD vs Paprika Blu-ray. I think it all has to do with clarity. After watching HD and going back to SD, it just don't feel right.

If someone were to find a way to get the episodes from their PS3 then fine. As of right now, I don't think there is any method to getting it since you can't copy it and it will disappear after 24 hours anyways. Like I wrote earlier, Bonen hasn't even aired in Japan yet. The Japanese got to wait until this Fall season to watch it so I don't think we will see any torrents floating around until this Fall.

edit: I'm eating my own words, great! Apparently the SD version is already floating around.

Too bad that the sound is out of sync though. Maybe HD will come with sounds in sync or I'll still end up paying to see it.

I found myself a list of anime blu-ray in Japan and some actually have English subtitles. It might be old news but Utawarerumono got blu-ray, what's more interesting is that it have english dub? and subs. All for the very cheap price of 377.75 bucks.

No wonder blu-ray in the U.S. is limited to anime movies/OVAs.

Full Metal Panic got English dub and subs too. Cost around the same too. lol

I can understand waiting for Blu-ray to get cheap, but easier to use? How can it get any easier? Unless you want Blu-ray players to transform into a robot and insert the disc by themselves like that Xbox from Transformers. xd

...at least you have influence.

Oh, I understand that.

I'm trying to get over my spending habits on anime. Rightstuf is like crack with their sales and weekly specials.