Bobobo-Bo Bo-Bobo: The Complete Series, Part 1

"Bo-Bobo The Complete Series, Part 1" is a great set despite the lack of English subtitle availability. The series is a wild ride skewering the ludicrous nature of so much anime (much like "Perfect Hair Forever"), and follows Bo-Bobo as he fights evil with his nose hair. The show features many amusing improbabilities (e.g. fish allergic to jelly doughnuts and villains like Captain Battleship who uses his nose hair for evil) and great dialogue ("You will be beaten by these two nose hairs!") The series conclusion is a bit anticlimactic, but it's all great fun and I recommend it to anyone, especially someone who likes to ironically view the excesses of anime.

First off, I love this show. It is a great gag comedy with shonen anime fun, and I'm glad its finally getting a more thorough release than in the past. The transfer is good, audio clear, and a pretty solid dub track (I've heard better, but I've heard many not up to this quality).My big problem, however, is the lack of an English subtitle track. The package says its there, and the publisher has come forward admiting the mistake. Did they admit an accidental omission of the track? No. They admitted the error of stating it on the package. A dub-only release isn't unheard of (it was the only way to get Rave Master), and the show wasn't edited (at least not anything I've noticed), but the inclusion of a Japanese audio track WITHOUT an English subtitle track seems like a slap in the face, especially when the original press release for the series stated it would be a sub/dub release.Quoting from Anime News Network:[...]While both Japanese and English language audio tracks are available on the release, Amy Schorr, President of S'more Entertainment stated: "The episodes were never available in a sub-titled format and neither TOEI [nor] S'more could justify the cost of creating new versions of the series. DVD sales have plummeted to the point where most companies wouldn't be willing to commit the money needed for packaging [and] authoring, but we felt the series was important enough to justify any risk."Many companies are "willing to commit the money" to put out physical DVDs, and some successfuly with mostly subtitle-only versions (Section 23, for example). I would think a new company (this is the first anime release from S'more Ent.) would try harder to please the fans. I'm not asking for a huge, killer special edition, I just want what is promised to me.

Since so much has been said about this unusual, surreal, nonsensical series already, I'll skip right to the details of the set.Bo-bobo has had a troubled home-video history. It was picked-up by an up-and-coming company spun-off from ADV employees who flew the coop called Illumitoon. They promised the series without the cuts it received on television and the original Japanese language track. Instead of offering a box-set of some sort, they went with singles. Volume one arrived and something was glaringly off; the subtitles were closed-caption dub-titles that followed the dub and its varying detours from the original. The dub-title track wasn't horrible per-se, but the closed-captions just didn't work. The company admitted to their mistake and began replacing discs for free that corrected this issue. Soon enough, volume two came around. Then everything went silent and it stayed that way; until now.Illumitoon closed-up shop after putting-out a very small set of discs for two-to-three different series. Fast-forward to January 2011 and a surprise annoucement is made; Bo-bobo had been licensed rescued! S'more Entertainment pulled the series from its slumber and promised fans a complete series release in two box-sets. This was it! The series was finally getting the release it deserved; in full.The release of set number one has come and gone earlier this week with not just joy, but confusion. Reports started coming in that the English subtitles were downright missing from the set. S'more Entertainment announced subtitles, advertised it on their online store, and slapped it on the package. Illumitoon's old release started with an issue, and this seemed to have been no different. A coincidence? Not so.It appears mentioning of subtitles was an error on the company's part. That's right; they weren't including subtitles to accompany the Japanese language track. Instead, disc four comes with a set of translated scripts for all thirty-eight episodes in the box. S'more was not offered subtitles to go along with the set, and admitted to leaving them out because of cost reasons. My problem with this is that they passed-off the wrong information for nearly four months straight. If it wasn't going to be subtitled and you incorrectly stated it as such, fix your mistake!That said, everything else about the box is beautiful. 38 episodes come spread on four discs with crisp artwork inside two regular-style DVD cases housed within a lightly matte-finished slipbox. Picture is crisp and bright, with minor artifacting affecting mostly on-screen text and scenes with heavy movement. The sound is clear as day and quite LOUD. (This is a plus!)Finally, the original Japanese audio is included along with the English dub. As far as the latter goes, it's really good. I watched the whole thing when it aired on television, and found it well-cast. The translation took liberties here and there with obscure cultural stuff, but not like usual; it picked at it. And believe it or not, the joking was in the vein of the series and felt far from out of place. With this set, viewers who want to see it in the original language can do so know. But as I said before, no subtitles.+Pros+-Uncut!-38 episodes-English track-Japanese track-Good picture-Good sound-Beautiful package+Cons+-No subtitles-English scripts come as .pdf extrasI'm really torn about this set. It's decked-out with the series in the way it should be, but the missing subtitles makes it hard to recommend. My issue lies more with how the licensor handled their issues and continues to do so. Had I known before hand, I would have had time to think about watching the series raw or printing-out the enclosed scripts to follow-along with. For those who don't care, you have no reason to skip this at such a great price. For those who do, think about it first long and hard.Either way, the series has finally come close to getting the release it deserves. It has on literally every single front, but the falsely-advertised issue can make or break it in the eye of the beholder.

An excellent and hilarious parody of the shounen genre, Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo is an must buy. After being one of the final shows aired in the waning days of Toonami, Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo finally gets a DVD release after the ill-fated Illumitoon attempt - this time with 38 episodes on this 4-disc set (10 episode on the first three, and 8 on the fourth).The show itself stars Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo as he wanders the Earth in the year 3001.5, and fights the Chrome Dome empire with his nosehairs. He's joined by Beauty and Don Patch, as they attempt to save all the world's hair.While this set delivers a uncut version of this show (they were kinda minor cuts, but still) than the one that aired on CN, there's also a bit of an issue. If you're fan of your anime subbed, this set features absolutely no English sub, despite early promotional materials and the very box art saying otherwise - which is strange for an anime release. It does feature a pdf version of the original scripts in the fourth disc, for whatever that's worth - and you can listen to it in Japanese.That's a pretty bad look for S'More's first attempt at anime publishing, as despite the sets strength in the awesome dub, and excellent audio/visual quality, lack of sub will have a negative effect on sales. That said, if you can push past the subtitles issue it really is a great buy, for a hilarious series.

This is the weirdest, most random thing I've ever watched, but it is so funny! All of us (boys and girls, men and women) were in stitches and have now become Bo-bobo fans.

自分はテレビで見た時はこのアニメは面白いと思いました。ボーボボらしいギャグもなかなかいいです。