Maid Café (メイド喫茶)

Andrew T.

08:07

@Gao hmm... potential good resources for a Q&A ...

Gao

@AndrewT. They're just ones of many sites that might be helpful to compare released versions of a select few anime, and because of the low coverage, they're not candidates to being included as answers to this question:

41

Q: What databases and listing sites exist for anime, manga, etc?

What are the major online databases of anime, manga, light novels, visual novels, and other related media? What are the differences between them? To qualify as an answer, the source should list a large fraction of series in some particular medium, not just one or a few related series. The primar...

resources

there's not even a filter to query only anime, as the sites accept all dvd and movies

there are a few more interesting sites i've encounterd while searching for the ideal version i should get for an anime. for example, there's hiddendvdeastereggs.com that discusses the easter eggs of dvds with some (very few) entries for anime.

Andrew T.

I guess I can only dream of a wiki-like site for 1) media comparison (e.g. anime vs manga), and 2) episode/chapter mapping (e.g. anime => manga)

Gao

ANN's still probably the most comprehensive site regarding anime releases

Andrew T.

for 2), too bad Japanese Wikipedia stopped doing that

Gao

@AndrewT. do you know why? and i suppose it's up to the wiki authors whether to do this daunting task for an anime/manga

AI's the only possible solution to do this in scale, if it has access to all the sources and is intelligent enough, neither of which will be true for the foreseeable future

i think it's a missed opportunity that none of the db/listing sites go as far to include the dvd/bd version comparisons, and their schemas and data models aren't close enough to the realities imo. Might try to build such a site or analyze and write a spec for others to implement in the future

Andrew T.

08:43

@Gao they deemed it as excessive information (guideline in Japanese), I couldn't find the discussion regarding that decision though.

Gao

@AndrewT. makes sense, but they could always do the comparison in a new article/page

SPArcheon - on strike

@Gao not even a browsable list??

Gao

@SPArcheon-onstrike dunno of a way to show that. i could browse by company if i know the name of the company

SPArcheon - on strike

09:06

@Gao searching "sku SFB-LUM100" on google gives TWO results.

out of this, one is an irrelevant wrong page, whilst the other one is

animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/releases.php?id=47173

> Title: Urusei Yatsura - Seasons 1 & 2 Collection
Volume: Blu-ray-A
Running time: 575
Distributor: Sentai Filmworks
Release date: 2024-03-19
SKU: SFB-LUM100
UPC: 816726020563

on the other hand if I look up the upc...

I get multiple hits, including Amazon and the Crunchyroll store

If then I use the ASIN from the amazon page...

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0CQS16SZX

I obviously get hits for the various local Amazon sites.

the bluray.com site seems to recognize both the UPC and the ASIN.

Oddly, I can't find either displayed on the item page.

Gao

09:21

i think UPC is better for uniqueness as SKU is specific to a vendor and might duplicate across vendors?

SPArcheon - on strike

Feb 15 at 17:32, by Gao

I also don't know why blu-ray.com doesn't show the SKU number. That's supposedly the only thing that can uniquely identify a specific BD release.

Gao

but i think SKU is printed on the DVDs so it's more readily verifiable, in case the case is lost

@SPArcheon-onstrike i stand corrected

SPArcheon - on strike

@Gao then how can it be "specific to the vendor"?

Maybe we don't mean the same thing by "Vendor".

Gao

@SPArcheon-onstrike my understanding is SKU is not internationally assigned, just used internally by a company, so it could duplicate with other SKUs by other companies

SPArcheon - on strike

for the one I mentioned above, is the vendor Sentai or Amazon?

Gao

09:27

i guess sentai as amazon is not, what is the word, distributor? producer? you know, the one responsible for putting the anime onto a dvd for selling

ASIN is specific to Amazon? so not a good universal reference

@SPArcheon-onstrike Now this is really weird. Don't they want you to learn the info?

SPArcheon - on strike

looking at this image for reference, I can see both the UPC and the SKU printed on the box.

The UPC is under the barcode. The SKU is on the side, just below the "SENTAI" logo

Gao

@SPArcheon-onstrike yes, but if you lost the cover and only kept the disk, the SKU is printed there, too

i don't know if it's universal or not, but the ones i've seen all have the sku printed on the dvds

don't know how to identify digital-only anime though

SPArcheon - on strike

@Gao but if you notice the box is SFB-LUM100 , while the four disks are SFB-LUM1001, SFB-LUM1002, SFB-LUM1003 and SFB-LUM1004.

Gao

@SPArcheon-onstrike interesting, so they append the disc number at the end?

SPArcheon - on strike

alas, I am more interested on the process you mentioned before.

Gao

09:36

@SPArcheon-onstrike which process?

SPArcheon - on strike

1 hour ago, by Gao

there are a few more interesting sites i've encounterd while searching for the ideal version i should get for an anime. for example, there's https://www.hiddendvdeastereggs.com/ that discusses the easter eggs of dvds with some (very few) entries for anime.

decide what version to buy.

Let's suppose for example that there was a boxed release of the 4kids version of One Piece and that includes all the censorship they added on the anime

You are trying to decide what version to buy.

Ideally, I would not start with a code.

I would like to go to a site and search the show title.

Then, assuming I get multiple hits, I would like to have some info about any caveat that version may have.

Gao

Then the version should show that code so any discussion is clear which version is being discussed, instead of "the German COMPANY_NAME version" (limited edition or regular release?)

SPArcheon - on strike

I would probably be fine if it at least displayed the UPC since that should also be unique

sometime the cover may be enough but I get your fears

My main issue anyway lies upstream

Feb 14 at 17:12, by SPArcheon - on strike

Some US and EU "complete box sets" aren't actually complete. A very well known example is the EU "Complete" Love Hina set - which is missing the ending OVA. You know, those episodes that provide the actual closure to the story. To rub salt on the wound, the included artbook has pictures of an OVA only character.

I managed to find a listing for the ITALIAN version (which I know for sure has said issue, an Italian friend bought it)

There is no info about this.

> blu-ray.com/movies/Love-Hina-Blu-ray/272328/#Overview

To be fair there isn't even any info about what is included

AUTO TRANSLATED review from amazon.

Gao

the runtime is also missing so you can't deduce if they included everything

SPArcheon - on strike

> Will Keitaro be able to get admitted to university? Will there be a spark between him and Naru? Well if you buy this box set you will never know simply because the animated series is not complete: the anime broadcast on TV has 24 episodes, a special episode, two seasonal OVAs (the Christmas one and the spring one) and three other mini-OVAs (in fact three other episodes of 30 minutes each) called "Love Hina Again" which follow the original ending of Ken Akamatsu's manga and close the plot in a satisfying way. Unfortunately these last three episodes, released a year after the spring special…

@Gao I wouldn't know without knowing the serie. That is useful only when you know the media enough to be able to make the connection.

Gao

09:51

@SPArcheon-onstrike but even the runtime could be misleading. the official info could be wrong, too

SPArcheon - on strike

@Gao that is why you need an user curated site like you suggested.

Gao

so a possible scenario is: the localization haven't acquired the rights to the OVA, but still wanted to make some quick bucks, and told a white lie and sold the complete box sets without actually being complete.

yea in this case only the user who's become the victim would know and can share on a curated site

SPArcheon - on strike

> Everything is even more strange because I suspect that the design of the box set was taken heavily from another edition (perhaps an American or Japanese one) which contained "Love Hina Again". How come? Because the main character introduced in these OVAs, Kanako Urashima makes her appearance not only in the illustrations present in the small booklet included in the package, but is also drawn in a chibi version on the illustration printed on disc 5

I bet in this case they actually got the rights to the content of the US boxed set but were too lazy to dub the thing and too stupid to simply sub it

@Gao preciselly.

Maybe @JNat can convince the company to make the site we need.

Could be a nice way to get commissions for the shop links and actually RELEVANT ads that we wouldn't block by default ...

@Gao back to the topic, another example.

Tezuka's Metropolis

> At the very end of the Japanese theatrical version of the movie, after the credits, there is a photograph fortelling a happy ending for the two main characters. This photograph was cut in the US version.

At least some of the original SONY boxed releases had this issue.

I don't know if any of the following bluray versions fixed this.

Gao

there's almost no way to be certain of missing scenes like these unless one compares all the released versions across the globe

SPArcheon - on strike

if you know the movie plot, you may realize that missing THIS image is quite a bit the issue...

as it solves a specific cliffhanger that otherwise has no resolution

Gao

10:05

i know for sure the japanese version could be censored at least, it's not impossible that a foreign release has improved or added stuff to the original, which sometimes happens in video games

@SPArcheon-onstrike i remember you posting this before and i had issue spoting where tima is

SPArcheon - on strike

@Gao that one is a personal favorite of mine. Really shows what happens when you leave the release in the hands of clowns with no passion

If you don't care about the things you sell, you are bound to make such mishaps

Gao

would be interesting to know if there's a story behind the US release not including this last image

SPArcheon - on strike

@Gao The story I hear is basically "Sony managed the theatrical version and mistakenly gutted out the post credits scene (because some idiot must have assumed no movie ever had one). Then because they are horrible they kept the mistake in the disk release"

@Gao btw I found this.

dvdcompare.net/about.php

but... they choose the wrong model.

they think they can do this alone.

it is exactly what we would need, but it is utterly failing due not being a wiki project

@Gao see for example One Piece Film Red

some versions are missing MORE THAN AN HOUR OF CONTENT

Just going for the linked page, the german and the french releases gutted the three extra Uta episodes.

Gao

10:29

to be fair, they did mention only the UK and US versions included the extra episodes

they probably think the film itself being uncut is more important

SPArcheon - on strike

@Gao ? I just meant that the site above would provide me enough info to make an informed choice

Suppose I am French. After reading that I may go for the UK version instead

Gao

I guess the site could be useful, but it's only one of many sources I have to rely on. Pictures can be worth more than a thousand words.

@SPArcheon-onstrike it's a shame. their team size can only handle the number of uhd 4k blu-rays

allowing anonymous edits is important, which i think ann doesn't have and contributes to it also kind of failing

SPArcheon - on strike

10:48

such a site could only exist as a wikipedia style project

JNat

11:31

@SPArcheon-onstrike mmh?

SPArcheon - on strike

11:44

@JNat see the full exchange there. Basically, Gao was pointing out how it would be useful to have a site that for any anime (or really for any movie/series/whatever disk release) lists the available versions and any relevant issue or difference.

For example like I said, the UK and US version of the One Piece Film Red movie blu ray are the only ones that include the three extra Uta's OVA

I was joking that we could make a network site for that

(actually, not joking if only we could find a good way to do that. Personally I would be perfectly fine to give the company the referral link fee for the disks I buy if that would mean having all the info in one place)

Gao

but stackexchange is not a wiki

JNat

@SPArcheon-onstrike wouldn't you be able to make community wiki posts work for this, somehow?

that's the best solution I can find for you

Gao

and well my goal is more ambitious than just media version comparison

JNat

@Gao I'm still pondering whether I wanna carry on with RE:zero or drop it xD

Gao

12:29

then just drop it xD

JNat

I don't remember where the plot left off, is all

it's been too long

Gao

if a whole season hasn't convinced you if you wanna continue or drop, it's safe to drop

Gao

12:49

Well, the plot has been inconsistent so not knowing where it left off is normal.

Sakamoto

13:48

0

Q: Why didn't Goku use his "Super Saiyan 4" transformation against Beerus?

So, if Dragon Ball Daima happens before Battle of Gods, and Goku got his "Super Saiyan 4" transformation in Dragon Ball Daima, why Goku didnt he use this transformation against Beerus? Can't he use it at will or something?

dragon-ball-series dragon-ball-super dragon-ball-daima

Sakamoto

15:40

0

Q: Manga about man who adopts dog boy?

I think it may have been a post apocalyptic situation, but I read a manga a while ago with a man and a dog beastman kid on the cover. Man had to rescue the kid and now they travel together.

manga-history

Otaku

18:57

@Gao Of course that's what fans consider an inconsistent plot...

@JNat Depending on where you left off, you could watch short season recaps on YouTube. That is, if you want to keep watching it.

Otaku

23:55

I really need to stop purposely constantly looking for anime to watch when I'm doing other things... and also randomly pausing anime to watch other anime... and also watching way too many anime at once... etc

On the other hand, I'm finding some that seem to be lesser known, but also have very interesting plots (though I haven't actually watched them yet)

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