Over at Chizumatic, SDB wrote:
on Saturday I put in an order for more DVDs with Robert. My order was filled and shipped yesterday. (I don’t know if everyone gets service that good, or if I’m attracting special attention because of this site. I really hope it’s that everyone gets the same service, because otherwise I’m party to a deception.)
Well, we’re about to see if it’s just Steven DenBeste getting special service. Back on the 6th, I ordered three anime DVD’s from DVD Empire. Their price was enough better than Robert’s on just 3 CD’s, that I could pay for the shipping with the difference. One of the DVD’s was a pre-release order, due out on the 11th, so I thought I’d have it by this weekend.
Well, it didn’t quite work as well as I expected. Yesterday, the order still showed as open and unchanged. Today I look and for the second time, DVD Empire has gone straight from “pre-ordered” to “out of stock” on an item. If they’d had the courtesy to tell me a few days in advance that they’d ordered too few and needed a couple of more days, I could have changed my order. Instead, I was not even notified of the change. Last time it was Ah My Goddess, this time it’s Mars Daybreak, but the 2nd DVD was AMG vol. 4, so it gets caught up in the delay anyway. Screw that.
So I canceled the order with DVD Empire and re-issued (with additions) over at Roberts.
Daphne vol. 4-5
Ah My Goddess vol.4
Mars Daybreak vol.5
Full Metal Panic (boxed set).
The Empire has fallen. Long live Robert’s Corner Anime Store!
Meanwhile, SDB and I had a discussion of Scrapped Princess, and both concluded that the ending didn’t exactly suck but it was incredibly sub-par. It was much less than it could have been and that hurt the whole series. I thought his description of Pacifica as a MacGuffin was particularly apt; we were both disappointed in her development (or lack thereof) in the series. She never stepped up to meet her destiny. (In real life, that’s a criticism I have often had of Prince Charles, another person who seemed to be much smaller than the role awaiting him.)
I was looking for an ending similar to Varley’s Gaean series, and it didn’t even come close. Scrapped Princess was a great series in so many ways, compromised by a mediocre ending.
I’d like to do a review sometime soon, but it looks like things are heating up for me on several levels, so I probably won’t have time.
Update: And Dr. Heinous objects to the resolution of the Cz subplot: “And after all that,
However, I categorically reject his assertation that I am in need of a Mr. Soupy costume.
