Posting my Jewel in the Palace commentary a good five months after I started watching the series makes me want to watch through it again. Being 54 one-hour episodes makes this prohibitive, however.

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There are two things which I find make the manga, Mao-chan great in comparison with the animated series: First, although the manga retells a story and a few parts from the animation, it otherwise is completely independent. You’re not reading the same material you’ve already watched (not that I have any problem with that in the case of Saint Tail, I must say). Second is that artist Ran used the same art style as Ken Akamatsu’s original artwork for the animated series. Why mess with cute perfection and perfect cuteness?

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Taking a step in the right direction, ADVFilms has a “digital download” service, which allows one to buy episodes of some of their selection of dubbed anime. Unfortunately, by the looks of things, they’re taking a few giant leaps in the wrong direction. Hopefully they’ll get on track in time. Today I’m looking at what they do offer, and how it can be improved upon.

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