I WANT TO EAT A NUT OF LAERMA!

I DON'T BELIEVE IT!

Now I have three DVD boxsets I did not know I was going to receive at the beginning of the week.

This time it's from my friend Chris in Massachusetts¹, who works for a certain Massachusetts-based decorative housewares retail chain, and I had sent him a surplus copy of the French translation of Cardcaptor Sakura volume 11 for his birthday in April, so he returned the favour and sent me this:



The subtitled, nearly-intact², second season of Sailor Moon, Sailor Moon R. Geez... I know he got it "clearance" from The Right Stuf International because ADV Films had to discontinue it rather unexpectedly when Toei refused to renew the rights for the first four Sailor Moon series in North America, possibly because they want to consolidate all future Sailor Moon releases in North America through a single distributor (though that's just idle speculation), but, still, he spent quite a bit more on me than I feel comfortable accepting from someone I've never met in person. Not that I'm going to return it or anything. And that's another 40 episodes of something that I'll watch a few episodes of and then put on a shelf, feeling guilty that I'm procrastinating watching the rest. Why the hell do box sets intimidate me so much?

He also did a homemade card, with Sakura, Tomoyo, and Shaoran Li from Cardcaptor Sakura, Atsuko Natsume/Nuku Nuku from All-Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku, Lum from Urusei Yatsura, and, of course, Kiyone, from alternate-universe Tenchi Muyo.

Thanks, Chris. But I was really just expecting a nice, pine-scented candle or something. Which would have been a nice present, as I really like pine-scent and it's difficult to find pine-scented air fresheners in spray or solid format, excluding the pine-tree-shaped car air fresheners; Glade and Wizard Air-Wick seem to have phased pine-scent out entirely, for whatever reason. (I have a pet theory on why you can't get pine-scented stuff anymore: people associate pine-scent with the cleaning fluid Pine Sol, and they associate the smell of Pine Sol with cleaning up vomit or dog crap, even though Pine Sol doesn't even smell that much like real pine trees whilst the old spray pine-scent smelt nice and Christmasy, and I like my place smelling like Christmas year round.)

Incidentally, the package took over a week to arrive. I thought Canada Customs might have opened the parcel for random inspection, which has happened to me a couple of times before. (I think I indirectly made a Customs inspector watch a whole bunch of Urusei Yatsura once.) But the package was still sealed, so I guess it just got stalled by the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend.

¹ Since some people around me have expressed concerns recently that I give out too much personal information here, I'm not going to say who Massachusetts Chris is other than someone I know from a message board, but, for those of you who remember my old AnimeOnDVD.com reviews, no, it's not Chris Beveridge.

² It's "nearly-intact" because it's missing episode 67, the "filler" episode with no relation to the main story arc of the season wherein all of the girls go to a mysterious island and Chibi-Usa (Reeny/Rini in the dub) befriends a lovable plesiosaur. Supposedly, the episode is such an embarassment, the Star Wars Holiday Special of the Sailor Moon franchise, that creator Naoko Takeuchi requested that Toei completely pull the episode from international distribution, or so the rumour goes.

posted by Steve Brandon @ 2:02 AM