“Patlabor” needs more love. So I gave it some in May 2007:

OK, time to show some of my most prized (and priced!) possessions. And I bought a grey rug just like Nemo to show them better!  ;D

These are the R1 Limited Editions for the first 2 “Patlabor” movies. Each set has two books: the storyboards, and a brilliant 180+ page book documenting the movie, discussing the inspiration and the impact it had.

The movies themselves are stellar and fully deserving of such treatment. The only problem I have is the video transfer of movie 2, which could’ve been a lot better. It looks like a double standards conversion, I mean: NTSC to NTSC, and still there is a lot of combing??!?
But the old version had one of the worst transfers ever, so anything was an upgrade I guess…

Anyway, no regrets whatsoever in re-buying these, as the packaging and books really makeup for the pricetag:

Those covers are indeed silver and gold, and a total pain to photograph with a flash!
Shaking them until they’re empty:

Then my own, but very different “Mindgame” boxset arrived:

My Mind Game Special Box just arrived (remember, the “intermediate” version), so as promised here are some pictures of it:

The outside is very cool, with the title embossed and glossy on a dullish-black background:

The insides: disks, the storyboard book (unfortunately the least interesting for me out of the 3 books in the SUPER-edition), the cards:

Now, having heard that the so-called “normal” edition is nothing to be looked down on either, that means there are three kick-ass editions out there.

Pick and choose!!

And then Kajino.P from Ghibliworld joined the fun!

Now everyone, go to Ghibliworld and check out this guy’s special editions of the Japanese Ghibli releases. Stunning!

[quote author=Ardvark link=topic=1587.msg16516#msg16516 date=1179957408]
[quote author=Kajino P link=topic=1587.msg16515#msg16515 date=1179953651]
(might as well include a little DVD review if anyone’s interested in that as well).

Please do! And if you do, would you mind if we put that on the main page? With adequate linkage to Ghibliworld of course!  ;D

Which reminds me: browsing through the Ghibliworld site I came upon pictures of the Japanese LE’s of “Laputa” and “Mononoke”. Absolutely marvellous, especially Laputa!! Would you mind if I link people to those?

Thanks for the picture,
Ard.

In that case, no problem at all… ^_^ But seriously, I’m more than welcome to. My package completed the customs clearance process today so I hope to receive it tomorrow (if everything goes well).

Concerning the Ghibli LE DVD sets, they’re indeed really nice. I don’t mind at all if you’d like to link people to those. There’s only a tiny part of my collection online, but it still gives some idea about what kind of Ghibli stuff there is/was for sale.

To come back at what BtoFu mentioned, the German LE of Mononoke isn’t anything special, it’s just a low quality box. You can find some pics of it over here:
http://www.dvdb.de/forum/showpost.php?p=362422&postcount=12

IMO the French is quite better, the lacquer finish is just lovely (the German edition just looks like a painted cigar box). Also, for those who needs them, the French version comes with English subs, the German doesn’t. Here’s some pics of the French edition:

The brilliantly overpimped “Wonderful Days”.

Speaking of animation: one of the most tricked-out editions from Korea is the “Wonderful Days” LE.

This was the first Korean Limited Edition I imported, and needless to say I was hooked. 
The outside and how it opens (magnets):

VoilA!  :o
So after opening up everything else we finally get to the DVD’s:

And the outside shows the plastic poster:

Without a doubt one of the prettiest around.

Speaking of ridiculous:

Another one of my prettiest: the ridiculously oversized “Welcome to Dongmakgol” LE boxset.

The packaging is made to resemble a fifties television complete with felt buttons, and the screen consists of a small paper diorama:

It contains the two-disc SE, a storyboard booklet, a card (allegedly signed if you’re lucky, although mine isn’t) and a small gift.

Inventive, but this sucker takes a lot of space: it’s bigger than the “The Host Giftset” and that’s saying something!

More:

Speaking of Korean Pimped, this particular page has been bereft of pictures too long.
I’d better take some while the floor is still clean.

Here is “The Duelist”, Korean 3-disc LE:
It’s a beautifully designed cardboard outer box which closes with magnets.

It only contains an inner box and a booklet, but sometimes that is enough. They fit real snug as well.

The inner box is pretty too, and the quality of the booklet is surprisingly high.

Added bonus, a bit off-topic: whether or not you’ll like this movie is up for debate (for the record: I loved it), but NOT up for debate is the quality of the A/V transfer which is stellar. Without a doubt amongst the very very best I own.

Interestingly (and against all customs) the huge making-of documentary has English subtitles. Yes, a Korean disc with subbed extra’s, unbelievable I know.

Some inventive horror-releases:

Thanks for the tip Doug, I’ll look into it! I may post something about this tomorrow.

In the meantime: look what I got in the mail today? The Hellraiser I, II, III Lament Configuration Boxset!

It opens like this:

And these grisly innards suddenly spill out:

Now I’ve heard a lot of bad things about this set: it would be impossible to close it after you opened it, the discs are held too tight, etc…
In my opinion this is nonsense. This set is a cool idea with an above-average execution.

The only “lament” I have is that they didn’t use the empty space inside to put something extra in, like a set of small booklets with the scripts, or a plastic puzzle-replica you could fiddle with a bit. That would have made the set more expensive but this thing is only bought by fans anyway (the individual movies can be found really cheap), so that shouldn’t have been a problem.

Anyway, still a very cool set. All three movies have DTS and commentary tracks so I’m fine with it.

Even more inventive:

Just got “Ichi the Killer” in the mail through one delivery service, and another one brings me the “Hanzo: the Razor” trilogy.
I can hold a misogyny marathon!
:-[

Anyway, about that Ichi: it’s the new Collector’s Edition with the disks inside a filled blood-bag. Can’t think of a more deserving film…

The edition: the disc’s are inside the bloodbag, which is inside a transparant plastic case.

Everything unpacked:

The bloodbag up close and personal: satisfyingly gross!

Of course the disks aren’t really wet: the bloodbag consists of two separate chambers stitched together, leaving a dry area in the middle. You can get the disks out through a slit in the side.

And then you can twiddle with the bag while watching the film! Muhahahahaaa!!!

Trés cool! Well done Media-Blasters.

EDIT: This edition is also completely uncut (I checked) and has the Miike Takashi Commentary track! This may currently be the best version in the world, with (dare I say it?) killer packaging.

Swarez replied, providing an eerie look of his chamber:

Ooh, commentary. I might get this now. I have the Dutch version already so I wasn’t in a hurry to get this.
I have a press version of the game Forbidden Siren 2 which has a similar blood bag theme.

Eight Rooks chiming in in July 2007 with loads and loads of good stuff!

Taking some very hasty pictures before the batteries on this cheapie digicam die. Let’s see how I do…

Right. I have a feeling this miiight be too many pictures… if I’ve overstepped the bounds, mods, go ahead and slap me/delete and I’ll edit it later. I just wanted to get something up tonight and it’s already taken me too long to take these as it is. :-[ Sorry for the poor quality.

Okay, here we go. I’ve finished university/am penniless right now, so I haven’t purchased any LEs in a while, nor am I likely to :( ... but I did drop a fair portion of my grant on them while it lasted.

THE BANQUET (Chinese 2-disc LE)

DANCES WITH WOLVES (Korean 4-disc Director’s Cut LE)

HERO (Korean 3-disc UE)

HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS (Hong Kong 2-disc CE)

MOONCHILD (Japanese 3-disc LE)

MY TEACHER, MR KIM (Korean LE)

NINJA SCROLL (Korean 2-disc CE)

OSEAM (Korean 2-disc LE)

R-POINT (Korean 2-disc LE)

Some BtoFu-l pictures:

A few hastily taken shots of some which are a bit less lavish than the giant boxes, but beautiful in their simplicity.

Samaritan Girl LE

I like the different colour scheme to the usual on this one. The DVD disc also has a nice faux cracked and spattered look which is kinda hard to catch under the light!

Warm Water Under a Red Bridge

The Forbidden Quest LE

Too Beautiful To Lie PE

Kurt’s vomit bag:

Not a DVD set, but a souvenir from the 2001 edition of TIFF’s Presentation of ICHI THE KILLER, a night at the uptown theatre, with complimentary Vomit Bag before the show.  Gimmicky...sure, but I still have it 6 years later!

BtoFu shares another nice release with us:

[img]A few nice little items as seen in the film come along with the HK LE of Be With You..

[/img]

Next!!

... is me again.

Not the most spectacular of all, but pretty nifty nevertheless:
The R1 3-disc steelbook edition of “Ghost i/t Shell Standalone Complex: Solid State Society”

So what makes me post pictures of this?
Well, putting it upright when slightly opened gives you a nice 3D-illusion of Motoko Kusanagi’s face!

The Criterion edition of “Videodrome” has a brilliant piece of packaging: the box resembles a VHS bootleg, complete with color-coding and fake number.

Startled me when I first saw it. WTF?!?

Look at the attention for detail, remember this is all just a print on the cover:

Removing the box from the slipcase reveals the tape in all its glory:

And thankfully the DVD’s are inside. Had me worried for a moment!

That’s a beauty. Although I did a similar custom cover for the original Ring.