Random pet peeve of the moment: CyberLink’s Power DVD has a strange feature when interacting with Geneon’s release of DearS: Individual episodes are not treated as such in the progress bar. The entire disk (well, the episodes, not the extras) is treated as one show. This makes it extremely hard to reach a specific time index by clicking on the bar. I suspect it’s Geneon’s fault, since no other DVD’s I have exhibit this behavior.
As for DearS itself, I’ll have more to say later. I found it more tolerable than Chobits, although it shared a couple of the same flaws. But I was really creeped out by that teacher. Sorry, I don’t care how stupid the principal is, no one is going to tolerate a teacher that rolls around on the desk in lingeré and has her students read lurid novels in class.
No, the resemblance to the picture on the book isn’t an accident. Apparently she moonlights as a nude model and porn star. Given that, I’m surprised that neither Takeya nor Oihiko have seen her in any of the porno vids or magazines. I’m also surprised that there’s enough text in such a book for it to be used in English lessons, but I guess it’s the kind without pictures. I’ve heard they still make those….
I have a related post (much more serious) already scheduled for tomorrow.
They have a choice when they make the DVD whether to put all the episodes together in one multi-part VOB file, or to put each of them into a separate VOB. Look in the video directory on the DVD and you can readily tell which they did. I’ve seen both quite often.
(Actually, it can be even more complex than that; some of my DBZ disks use separate VOBs for the OP and ED and even for the “in the last episode” and “in the next episode” sections. But those disks are really weird and few others do that.)
In the mean time, if you right-click the time bar in PowerDVD, there’s a popup which allows you to enter the time using the keyboard.
Oh yay! That should help. I’ve viewed all four disks now, and am mulling it over. I think I’m going to have to go back and watch it again (cute aliens have NOTHING to do with that, really!) to decide. The teacher was a major negative; I was not comfortable with her at all. Even if I would have loved being in that class when I was a sophmore.
There are some similarities to Chobits, and a lot of differences.
The biggest difference is that DearS is a fanservice sex comedy, with a slight veneer of seriousness to try and make it look respectable. (It fails). Chobits is serious, with a bit of comedy to keep it from dragging too much. (It fails, too, IMO).
The biggest similarity is that Takeya is willfully as dense as Hideki, and freaks out almost as much. Not quite though; Hideki always seemed to be on the verge of losing it when Chi did something strange; Takeya copes, not necessarily well, but he copes. Well, except for the time that all the guys in class overreacted to her, uh, unique method for cleaning soy milk off his face.