http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/detailview.html?KEY=KDSD-42
http://www.amazon.co.jp/exec/obidos/ASI ... 75-8252251
So there's a story behind my picking up the CD.
It was sent from CDJapan via registered mail, which means there needs to physically be someone there to pick it up and sign for it. Of course, I'm at work when the mail comes, so there's no-one here to take the package. Mail person leaves a slip saying it can be picked up at the post office. The post office that's closed before I get off of work. Great. Typically I'd have to wait until Saturday (it was first attempted to be delivered on Wednesday) to pick it up... but being the raging fanboy I am, that ain't gonna happen. Lunch break today I hop in my car and haul ass back down to Cranbury. Stuffing my turkey sandwhich down as I drive south, I get stuck behind school bus after school bus. Takes me over half an hour to get down to the post office. ARGH. I managed to get down and back in exactly an hour. Heh. Score one for Mike.
Of course, I popped in the CD on the way back to work. Loudly. While my rips from the PS2 games really have been as good as they can get, there's something to be said for the full-quality, uncompressed version playing off of CD. There's a good deal in "Kusuburu Heart..." that I'd never heard before, and it was only through a very loud car stereo that I heard it
.The music on the disc is a mixture of music from the first game, the second game, and seemingly un-used tracks. Starting around track 10 and sporatically throughout the rest of the disc, there's a great deal of music I'd never heard before. Ever. Now, it's quite possible that over two years later I don't remember the music from the first game that well, but some of it sounds like it's left-over material from, say, "Final Bout"... I just don't recognize it.
Cramming music from two games together, there's an incredible deal of music they left out. I was really hoping to get all of the "Dragon World" stage music (especially stage 7's jazzy awesomeness), but it was not to be. That's not to say I don't enjoy the CD; it's quite great. You'll recognize a lot more than you don't.
So... Tower of Power. They've got some songs listed on the CD. Namely "Soul Vaccination," "Soul With a Capital 'S'," and "Only So Much Oil in the Ground." Now... uhh... I've heard those songs before, as performed by Tower of Power. These are not those songs. These are tracks I recogize from the games, and in no way resemble the actual Tower of Power songs. Did they just randomly assign pre-existing Tower of Power song titles to new DBZ game songs? WTF? Totally weird.
Now, the back of the CD case is interesting... the official Japanese titles are on the left, with English... "titles"... on the right. But they're not necessarily translations. As we all know, "Go for it !" is not a translation of "Kusuburu Heart ni Hi o Tsukero"
. English is extremely prevelant throughout the packaging, though... seems to be both "cool" and obvious that there'll be a good deal of American fans importing.But then there's the bonus DVD, which is what most of us were looking forward to the most... ^_~
Amainzgly, it loaded right up in both my computer and DVD player no problem. Haven't checked to see if it has any region coding AT ALL, but it certainly loaded without having to hack the players. Neat! There's no menu; it's just a straight video. It's somewhat poorly shot and even more poorly compressed, but it's fun none-the-less. In general, there's more English than Japanese (and the English is subtitled in Japanese!). Over-all, it's more video set-to-music than actual dialogue and conversations. It starts out with a quasi-music video to the short version of the opening theme. It goes on through a bit of introductions to the various recording performers (Hironobu Kageyama, Steve Lukather, etc.). There's a mini music video with in-game footage, as well. There's a ton of obvious "timing" (just like in our amateur anime music videos), which was cute and fun. The disc ends with another quasi-music video to the full version of the theme, showcasing each performer and their musical abilities.
And Hironobu Kageyama dancing and singing out in some ghetto, somewhere. Not sure what's up with that.
Anyway, below would be a few images from the DVD. It's relatively short, but certainly fun to watch... and definitely makes you feel all hardcore-fanboy
.Looking forward to the next few CD releases...!
So let's discussing. Who all picked it up? Whatcha think?
