Version 5.4 ~ Haruhi gave rock and roll to you.
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8 January 2004: Kare Kano

So, I bought The Right Stuf's boxed set of His and Her Circumstances (A.K.A. Kare Kano, A.K.A. Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou). I'm only a couple episodes into the DVDs (although I've seen the show before), but I'm still pretty impressed with the work The Right Stuf did on the show, including multiple subtitle streams for all the on-screen text that appears.

Unfortunately, the DVDs do have some fairly significant problems. For example, my Pioneer DV-563A-s positively choked on the multiple subtitle streams several times within the first two episodes alone. This usually manifested as severe lag in the subtitle streams, but the subtitles themselves also "freaked out" (a very technical term, I know) a few times, and danced entirely off-screen at least once. This is apparently a known problem that happens to other players as well, particularly when there is a lot of on-screen text. For example, I gave the first disc a try in my old Sony, but that player choked on the tougher sections as well. [Update: I had no problems at all with my HTPC.]

But anyway, if your DVD player is up to the task, it's a great buy. Hell, it's practically worth it just for the fact that they set the original Japanese language track as the default setting. Man, that never happens.

The other problem I have with the discs is that the video quality is not particularly good. In fact, it's downright poor for a DVD. The worst problem with it is the visible interlacing that plagues many motion scenes.

Still, despite these problems, it is a good deal, and it is a good show, so I still recommend it, and aside from the technical problems, the DVDs themselves are quite nice, particularly the aforementioned perks.


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