2005 June 5:
I now have a podcast called AnimeBuzz with Marc Lunden where we discuss anime and manga from the perspective of North American fans and the goings-on of Anime on DVD site and forums.
2003 September 14: The highly anticipated release of Twelve Kingdoms (2002 TV series) has what is effectively a mono sound track, and it has evolved into quite a ruckus when people started checking their other Media Blasters DVDs. I have added an entry in the links bar above.
Also, because the Slayers sets have been fixed and I think even the exchange program has expired, I removed this entry from the top bar: Slayers Fix Switch Box.
2003 July 4: I made a lot of updates on this page. Please also note that I've been downgrading some "problems" into "nitpicks". This gives me a little more flexibility in how I can present issues. If you believe I misclassified something, please drop me a line.
2002 December 22: I have added a few bug entries. I have also been playing around with a quick "favicon.ico", if you bookmark my page in Internet Explorer or Phoenix or view my page in Mozilla, you will see it next to the site link, in IE and Phoenix shows it next to the bookmark.
2002 October 31: I added a link to Mike Battersby's "R4 Buglist" up in my title bar, just click "Region 4" up above to see it. It mostly covers Madman's releases. For those that don't know, R4 consists of mostly Australia. Thanks, Mike!
Purpose:
To increase the awareness of technical issues that are in certain anime discs, and eventually to rank the severity of the problems. This can be used to determine if a prospective purchase is compatible with your system and it can also help trouble shoot what is going on with your system when you do find a bug, to help determine if it is a player problem, a disc problem and if someone else has noticed it. Hopefully we can provide a workaround for the problem.
We all should recognize that while most DVD players and most DVD discs work maybe 99.9% of the time, there will be some failures. That is what this list is for. We don't see very many problems with VHS lately because it is a 20+ year old format and the bugs are pretty much worked out, a new format needs time to mature.
Keep in mind that I am reporting issues even if only one kind of player is affected. I try to avoid reporting discs that are poorly "pressed" as those can often be fixed by immediately exchanging the disc, unless an entire run is showing problems, the initial run of Miramax's Princess Mononoke and Manga's End of Evangelion are examples where there was a systematic pressing error.
Short Term Goal:
To to report issues and rally for a recall of highly defective discs.
Long Term Goal:
To improve the overall quality and robustness of anime DVDs by reporting issues now so that future discs do not have these problems.
Please note:
This page is not intended as a heckling tool toward the companies that made the product. When reporting an issue to the vendor, please be polite! Don't automatically assume that the vendor is at fault. Sometimes it is your player or the setup you are using, and sometimes the replicator made a bad disc. This page is set up so that DVD anime fans can determine the exact setups that trigger or expose a bug in a reproduceable manner. If it isn't reproduceable, the chances of squashing it are very slim.
Also, PLEASE don't jump to concusions! Go to Anime on DVD's Glitch Disc forum and post your findings. I go there quite often to update my list. It is possible to have a collection of 300 DVDs that don't show a problem, yet you put new one in, to find one and it might actually still be your player's fault! Faithfully working on 300 DVDs only minimizes the chance that the player is at fault, it doesn't eliminate it.
Common problems:
If you have a DVD that plays great the first time you watch it but the next time you play it, it doesn't work even after you clean the disc, simply exchange it. Often, a bad disc is a manufacturing defect, not a bug that is a fault of the DVD studio. If you get significant blockiness on your screen, clean the disc snd try it again.
What this is not:
This isn't a list of "edits" done to a show that intentionally affect the disc's video content, not its playback in a particular environment. This includes overlays, story changes or anything that is not part of the technical nature of the disc. For a list of edits done to anime, please check out Jim Lazar's Anime Prime. I have not decided if I consider pixelization and artifacts to be a bug, and I have not come up with a consistent policy.
This is also not a site dedicated to keeping up with the latest DVD release dates or their non-technical content. You would be better served by going to Anime On DVD. Make sure you bookmark that page as I find it useful for this purpose.
Unless otherwise noted, all the discs referenced in here are produced for North America, usually Region 1 only DVDs.
Mascot:
I wanted to have Skuld and her "system bugs" as my mascot, but apparently the rights owner won't give permission for something like that, as written by Robert Woodhead of AnimEigo:
It's only permissible in the context of a page about Oh My Goddess. To just use it as wallpaper on an unrelated page would not be allowed by the copyright holders.
best
R
Does anyone have suggestions?
This page...
a) is very boring, therefore it is suitable for all ages.
b) has not been reviewed by the ISP.
c) is not guaranteed to be useful.
d) has no nudity.
e) is probably blocked by censorware because I wrote "nudity".
f) has not been reviewed by the ISP but it does not violate their policies.
I cannot be held responsible for content that I linked to that is external to my site. Their maintainers cannot be held responsible for the content I put on my site.
Please also see my main anime page, and my main home page.
Layout ©2000-2003 Jeff DeMaagd