I just received it, and it really is an absolutely massive box .

I pretty much stumbled on it by chance on ebay, I was just looking at the bids that were taking place to laugh a little on the price of stuff (Yes I get bored from time to time) and saw this one with no bids on it at 20€ and less than a minute remaining, so I was like "Yeah ! go for it !" and I got it for 20€ (+8.50 for shipping), the seller also has this Macross 15th year box set and is keeping it for me until I can buy it from him when I get the money to (probably monday).
The box contains two part (Bell-1201 and Bell-1202) that are in a giant outer box (it doesn't even fit in my Laserdisc shelf).
Each one of them contains a booklet and 3 gatefold cardboard sleeves containing 2 discs each (so 12 discs in total !).
All the discs are fine (though they were really dirty initially, and my set smells like it was stored in a cigarette shop ).
Also, this set has the doomed elephant condoms disc sleeves (and they too were dirty).
As for picture quality it's good but nothing exceptional, but as it's an NTSC disc, I suppose there might be some loss due to it playing on a D925.
Overall, it really is a beautiful set, with great artworks on the gatefolds, and the booklets that (I'm sure) have lots of infos written in them, if I was a Gundam fan (I actually never watched any Gundam), I'll probably be drooling all over it

So as shown by the title, this is two topic crammed up into one.
As I was waiting for the box, I realized That I had a problem, since it's a Japanese only box, and since I don't speak Japanese (yet), I wouldn't be able to understand a thing (well, maybe 1 in 20 words ).
I then started searching for ways of having subs for non subbed LD, I came across some interesting topics on this forum about "genlock" stuff, but couldn't find any that was what I needed (composite in ->composite out) and not expensive (the few I saw were on the 200-300 range).
Then I came across the realization that I could use some kind of small screen and put it in front of my tv, hmm...if only I had a small screen...
Then I realized that in this day and age, everyone has one in their pockets, so I took out my phone and searched for a subtitle viewers of some sort, and found an SRT viewing app (YAY), now to find gundam's subtitles (ouch...).
I didn't thought this part would be that long and difficult, but I finally managed to get a hold on almost the full series (minus ep 1, 39 and 42) when I found this thing.
So now I'm working on making the subs I'm missing myself, using episodes I found on streaming sites as templates for what the characters are saying.

Anyway, I'm almost finished with ep1, and I will upload those files here, if any of you need subbing for their Gundam set

Nice score, I need to watch that series, I know of it since the early 80s but never watched the series.

As for smell just let it air out, it will happen from smoking collectors.
And change out all the plastic sleeves with new ones.

I have the older Macross box set but that's a good one too, you should enjoy that 15th box set.

You don’t keep the plastic sleeves for each jacket on box sets. It’s a giant PITA and totally ruins the fun. Use them for other LDs. You’re supposed to be experiencing the joy of handling quality paper, not shuffling around a dozen plastic sleeves that really make zero sense *inside* a box set if you think about it for two seconds.

Picture quality in this set is flawless. The original show is what’s lofi. This set was a state of the art digital master that was used for the DVD soon after. The covers are all new. It’s an amazing set. It also has Doan’s Island, which is never in the US sets for some reason.

I paid $10 for this set, the original price was many hundreds. Oh the halcyon days of 2014 when shipping was 7/8 of my LD buying expense. Things seem to have corrected a bit.

[edited for clarity]

Well 10$ is really cheap, how much was the shipping tough, since the one I got was sold over here in France, using a relay delivery, it was not that expensive.

About the Macross set, the seller contacted me to say that he remembered that someone asked if he could keep it for him before I did and that guy sent him a message and payed him (yeah...).
So no more Macross set for me.

As I'm stuck with some money and the will to buy some kind of big anime boxset collector, I asked the seller if he had any other anime box to sell, and he said he put this one up (well I think it is).

I never heard of this anime before, so if any of you knows if the anime is good or if the set itself is worth it (60€, compared to 30€ for the Macross one), I'm open to any info on it.

The bluray of Lodoss War is incredible and cheaper than that.. It's a fairly generic fantasy story but one of the earlier well made anime examples.

Lodoss War is one of the more sort after LD anime. I'm not into fantasy but it was shown at my anime club in the '90s and it was cool. It's like a very well animated AD&D session.

I'm really interested in your sub solution. Any links to more info or SRT files for other shows? thanks.

OH okay, it's exactly the type of universe I hate (I can't bear heroic fantasy stuff).
Well, unless he is willing to lower the price, I ain't buying it.

As for subs files, I said I was gonna upload all of Gundam's when I'm finished making the ones I'm missing.
But I also searched for the Macross SFD ones, I had to convert them from .a** files to .srt. (download here).
Concerning playback, just put you phone (or tablet if you have one, so you can get bigger subs) in front of your screen and press play on the sub viewer at the same time you press play for the disc.

I have this same mentality. It's been keeping me from watching...dammit, what was that Tomino series with the bug robots called again?

Anyway, I had the same initial reaction to Panzer World Galient but ended up freakin' loving that one.

Dunbine?



Fair enough.


Okay, thank you.



I think this is kind of genius. All this talk of complex mirror systems and other time consuming methods made me think just finally relearning Japanese was the answer. But I've been trying for 6 months (I mean 2 hours daily) and not making much progress at all. The real slang Japanese, especially of older males in anime is almost a completely different language to standard Japanese you learn with vocab sets and standard drills. It's doing my not so bright head in and making me remember why I couldn't learn Japanese properly in the first place, I'm just not good at studying or learning. And what life has taught me is that if somethings too hard, just give up, you'll be glad you did.

Now to accumulate SRT files for every box set I have and want...bwahhhhahahhha. Hey Takeshi, got any SRT files for Panzer World?

What's Dunbine?

Anyway, I finished making the srt file for episode 1, it's very tedious to make subtitles, so I figured why not just put all the ones that I have now, I'll add ep 39 and 42 some other time when they are done. (Files here)
I find Japanese not to be a very complex language, the only thing that's overly complicated is their alphabet, for me it's just random drawing, and I can't even manage to memorize just the hiraganas.

Another thing I did was to replace the "elephant condoms" of the box set with paper sleeves from other movies I have but don't like or from rotten discs I have, it's way better like this, why did they even came up with those thing, was it to save money, at this point it would only be cents in a disc production.

I also finally started to watch the anime, I watched the first disc (first 4 episodes) and I have to say it's a really good anime, it almost start off in a direct battle, and make the exposition of the plot throughout action which I kinda like, really entertaining (giant robots fighting in space with lightsabers and lasers, what's not to like ? ).

Aura Battler Dunbine. I believe forper is right it is the one with the "bug robots".

Please put replacement ECs back in. This is a $700 box set made of the highest quality materials. They didn’t use ECs to “save money”. They were trying to spend money.

If I had to guess I’d suspect that the paper ones you used are a few mm too big but either way ECs are the ticket. Every noob collector thinks they are junk and then has to learn the hard way years later that they are the best. Over and over again we’ve seen this here. The first well meaning idiot I remember doing it was me back in 1992.

If you never crumple the things they are easy to deal with. JP ones are rarely very crumpled. American ones are usually pretty bad.

Oh yeah, I remember spending stupid money back around that same time buying VRP inner sleeves to replace those ECs.
When I moved I bought ECs and then replaced all of them back and actually sold and made money off of the VRP sleeves, lucky me

Wait what ? Zeta, didn't you said I should remove them
Am I missing something here ?
I also find that they are not that difficult to handle when they are in good conditions, but the ones in the set are already way crampled (and really dusty and smelly).
And I don't see how removing the outer paper part in the "standard" sleeves is a way to spend more money.

Yeah, he meant the sleeves that go on the OUTSIDE of the jacket.

huh?
But there are no sleeves on the outer jackets.

When Japanese box sets are new (which is about %50 of the time the state I find them in) each cardboard jacket is bagged. Sorry, I thought that’s what you meant since some people actually reuse them which is clueless.

How a EC gets a smokey smell when it’s in a jacket, in a box, and then inside yet another out box is beyond me but if they are shot they can be replaced with similar sleeves.

It’s not a matter of ECs costing more or less. It’s about them being the best overall thing for the job. You need the plastic because it’s something very safe for the LD. No static and super smooth. You can use paper/plastic sleeves like 180g archive stuff but the paper doesn’t do anything except help you get the thing back in the jacket. The paper doesn’t last. The edges tear and the disc comes out the side. I’ve thrown away a lot of EC but only because someone spindled them up into a wad or got dirt inside. I’ve never seen one split. I have at least a dozen split paper/plastic combo ones from Disney, MGM, and the US publishers that use them.

Also, do yours fit? I haven’t seen a paper/plastic sleeve that will fit a JP LD without stretching just a *little* bit and that little bit is what’s going to make the sleeve come unglued or warp the disc. It takes a surprising amount of skill to engineer a perfect paper box like Japanese LDs usually have. It’ll last half a century easy if not four times as long but if you alter the amount of pressure inside it...some of it may fall apart like an old magazine.

Another thing I like about EC is that occasionally you get a piece of grit or something in sleeve and with an EC you can easily find it by just looking/feeling through the bag but with the paper ones you may never realize it’s there and potentially scratch the discs repeatedly until you do.

Oh ok, but with what you are saying, it seems to me like the US inner sleeves are not made well, I really don't know if the ones I got are different or not, but here is a picture.

I don't even know how, but the big outer box smells, the two inner boxes smells, the two boxes that are in the inner boxes smells, the interior of the jackets smells, the EC smells with some having dust INSIDE and even the inside of both booklets smells, and they also had dust inside (like how is this happening, did the guy was reading them while smoking ?)

I actually have encountered only one paper sleeve that has a side teared open (and it initially wasn't one of mine, but from a guy I bought it from)
anyway, they fit perfectly in them, and they don't seem to be crushed and don't stretches outside at all.
But I decided to put the ECs back (I cleaned them from the dust and tried to un-crumple them as best as I could) as I thought that this box set should keep what it came with after all.

US paper sleeves definitely suck. In my experience they are often torn.

I actually have or keep the bags on the cardboard sleeves inside a box set.
I don't want them to rub together in the box or when I'm pulling a disc out, its also easier as I will turn the discs 1/4 turn in the box so I can remove them from the
top and use the bag to pull out the disc I want to watch.

Thus not causing friction on each disc when pulling out or putting back in.