Accela

The only reason I used the site in the first place was because it was, by a wide margin, the most professional looking site I found. I've already explained the story to my friends and they're okay with it but I'm still quite irritated about losing the money in the first place. I've never brought Anime DVD's online before so I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to be looking for to be truthful, I'd kinda assumed that buying a Region 0 disc with English subtitles would be okay in itself, y'know. I mean, these's don't look like dodgy discs at all, the boxes are all nice and professional looking and the DVD's themselves are decorated in the usual fashion. I guess it's just bad luck on my part.

A few weeks ago I placed an order for fifty five pounds ($110) worth of Anime DVD's from [url=http://www.discountanimedvd.com]this[/url] website to give as gifts for two of my friends birthdays. When my purchases arrived I discovered that two out of the eight DVD's just don't work, the episodes that do work vary in quality from superb to awful and to top it all off they all appear to have been translated from Japanese, to Chinese followed by a word for word re-translation to English. Some of the DVD's are better than others but when they start to say things like "we out because our to ethnic" it becomes rather difficult to know what the hell is going on and as such my gifts are now useless. I've contacted the website in question but as yet I've heard no reply, after reading their terms and conditions I've come to accept that I'm not going to get a refund which means that not only do I have to say goodbye to my hard-earned money but I also have to buy replacement gifts for my friends. I've literally ordered countless things from the Internet in the past but this is the first time I've attempted to buy Anime because, quite simply, we don't get much of it here in the UK. As I see it I'm now left with two options, which is where you folks come in. [b]Option One:[/b] Buy everything again from another, more reputable website. [b]Option Two:[/b] 'Obtain' fansubbed episodes of the shows I paid for, burn them to a CD, put the burned CD's into the purchased cases then give them to my friends. I don't know if it's okay to post links to Torrents and suchlike here on the forum, but if you know any good ones please shoot me a PM. Thanks.

[quote name='2007DigitalBoy]If you don't, I'm going to start throwign out [B]The Mars Volta[/B], [B]Dream Theater[/B], [B]Ayreon[/B], [B]Opeth[/B], [B]Isis[/B], [B]Agalloch[/B'], and the like and you'll hate them all, haha.[/quote] Isis are fantastic. I'd like to recommend [url=http://www.myspace.com/officialjesu]Jesu[/url], because there's no good reason why you shouldn't listen to them.

Boris are awesome, as are Melt Banana, [url=http://www.myspace.com/envycore]Envy[/url], [url=http://www.myspace.com/ghammercrust]Gallhammer[/url] and [url=http://www.myspace.com/sighjapan]Sigh[/url].

I heartily recommend: [Click the link, then select the track I listed.] [i]'Not Of The Fallen'[/i] by Up-C, Down-C, Left-C, Right-C ABC + Start ([url=http://www.myspace.com/upcdownc]Link[/url]) [i]'I Believe In Your Victory'[/i] by This Will Destoy You ([url=http://www.myspace.com/thiswilldestroyyou]Link[/url]) [i]'Further Up'[/i] and [i]'Further In'[/i] by Caspian ([url=http://www.myspace.com/caspiantheband]Link[/url]) [i]'Alone & Unaware...'[/i] by Red Sparowes ([url=http://www.myspace.com/redsparowes]Link[/url]) I've got loads more in my MP3 collection but only posted the above four you you could all enjoy them too.

[B]Air[/B] I honestly can't say enough good things about Air, in fact everything about this show is phenomenal which is why it's my personal number one. The first thing I noticed about Air was the artwork, things like the sky and the ocean are vibrant and alive with colour, subtle things like the waves breaking on the beach look so real that I wouldn't be at all surprised if the animators actually took real video footage and just painted over it to get the effect. Air's greatest acheivemant however is its cast, right off the bat it has to be said that the female characters are cute beyond words and the lead male character (and his gravity-defying fringe) is one of the few male Anime characters that I could actually relate to as a male Anime fan. More importantly however is that you can't help but fall in love with these characters, you [i]genuinely care[/i] about them and want more than anything to see them overcome their troubles and live happily ever after. [B]Azumanga Daioh[/B] It's charming, it's endearing and it's funny beyond belief - it's Azumanga Daioh! I stumbed across this show a year or two ago completely by accident, I watched the first episode and within five minutes I was completely hooked on it. What interested me about AD is that it steers well clear of the 'teenage highschool girl story' cliches that most shows seem to revolve around and focuses almost totally on the comedy. Despite the fact that there's six primary characters (and several secondary characters of varying levels of importance) everybody gets a fair amount of screentime, sometimes it does veer on the edge of becoming the Chiyo show but luckily it never actually does. Like Air, AD manages to capture the viewers hearts with its characters, you're always rooting for Sakaki in her quest to find a cat that won't maim her, in Chiyo's attempts to find her place as a child in a young adults world and in Osaka, Tomo and Kagura's attempts to... well... finish school at all. [B]The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya[/B] This show seems to have taken the slapstick comedy stylings of Azumaga Daioh, the cuteness and character development of Air and the mystery of Serial Experiments Lain and moulded them into one massive gargantuan hybrid show. From a personality perspective Haruhi Suzumiya may very well be the most complex character ever to grace the world of Anime - she's eccentric, boisterous, manipulative, sometimes violent and fiercly intelligent, but on the flipside she's graceful, charming, cute as a button, multi talented and the most important (yet saddest) girl on Earth. What attracted me to this show was its depth, the characters all seem to have hidden agendas which somehow relate to the 'insignificant' Haruhi and I have a tremendous amount of respect for any company with the testicular fortitude to purposely show their work in the wrong order and make the viewer do their own reseach to watch the episodes in the correct order. [B]Serial Experiments Lain[/B] It's difficult to go against the norm and do something different, many shows have tried, but very few ever manage to pull it off - some, however, go above and beyond the call of duty which is exactly where Lain can be found. Lain's power lies in it's ability to decieve the viewer (in many ways this shows reminds me of David Lynch's 'Twin Peaks' or one of his many groundbreaking movies) with false clues, lines of thought which end abruptly and a story so complex (yet intriguing) that you'll want to keep watching just to see how far they're willing to push the envelope. The complexity of this show really seperates the men from the boys, I loved it for the many ways it caould be interpreted, for the further discussion it demands and for its uncompromising nature. [B]Ghost In The Shell: The Stand Alone Complex[/B] Like many people, the original Ghost In The Shell movie was my first feature length Anime experience so I was thrilled to bits when I discoved the series upon its UK DVD release. Whichever way you choose to look at it GITS:TSAC is a masterpiece and the new benchmark for futuristic, Sci-Fi Anime. I'm a massive appreciator of art so I was reduced to a dribbling wreck when I saw the New Port City cityscape for the first time, I mean, the attention to detail in this series is just mindblowing, it just goes to show that you can spend a fortune on a project and have it look good, take note Hollywood.

I shead a few tears during episode six of Air, but blubbed like a baby for ages during episode twelve. I felt so down after seeing it that I almost called in sick to work. I cried a little at the final episode of Azumanga Daioh - not because it was sad, but rather because such a fantastic series was all over. Kagura bursting into tears because she couldn't take a desk home gets me every time.