Recently I got this collection https://amzn.to/3N2nJOI . A must have (especially) for those of us who originally watched the series in Japanese. At least for me who watched it each week back in 03/04. These would be aired in Japan each Sunday, if memory serves well, the raw was released on Monday and a two or three days later the fan subbed episode was released in all their 320×240 Real Player glory.
Video quality is as good as it gets, 480i SD (which looks good on a CRT TV, pictures don’t do it justice) with your choice of 2.0 or 5.1 Japanese audio with English subtitles. The idea of them releasing it in Blu-ray I guess is the convenience of only dealing with two discs. Personally I would have preferred the “inconvenience” of multiple DVDs, no biggie, just a matter of hooking up a really old Blu-ray player with composite output to my CRT TV.
A minor issue I found is related to the insert tracks (by OFF COURSE) on episodes 26 (Kotoba ni Dekinai) and 52 (Natsu no Hi and Midori no Hibi). Just today I watched episode 26, so instead of playing it from the disc I just played the original broadcast episode using my OG Xbox. When the time comes I’ll do the same, or for the sake of nostalgia will use my Win98 PC.
Other than that all is great, all 78 episodes are there plus a few extras on disc 2.
Regarding the Metarex saga, this would be the first time I watch it in Japanese in its entirety. As we know, it wasn’t originally aired in Japanese TV back in ’05. Back then, I watched it in French and I remember it being quite an exciting experience.
