From a packaging standpoint, there is no clearly-defined 'first' disc. Each jewelcase is separate. When they are bundled together in the factory wrap, the cover art on each one faces the outside. Each jewelcase has their own CD booklet, too (so it's not like the pages of one producer or tracklist come before the other). The 'obi' is the only remotely helpful thing, if you could even call it an obi. It's kind of like a sticker (rather than cardboard) that you don't apply onto anything else - as if it were a disposable aspect of the shrinkwrap. It's not solid and it doesn't fold very well. This particular 'obi' feels like has no place to go, and many people don't hang onto it. Once you've lost that, a nonfan going through a used Shiina Ringo collection isn't going to understand what's going on.

Dozens of times, I've seen people sell the used discs individually on Yahoo! Japan Auctions - if that gives you any idea of how independent/individualistic the packaging is. I pretty much never see other set-packaged Shiina Ringo discs get broken up into separate auctions (like Baishou Ecstasy, Ringo no Uta, Adult Pour Homme, or MoRA). Most of the people selling off Utaite Myoli discs separately, aren't Shiina Ringo fans - they are just resellers like pawnshops, and there is nothing with or about the packaging (once unwrapped) to indicate that the discs belong together.

I thought about right-to-left, and there is one problem with that. If you 'unfold' the cases in the physical arrangement they were originally clustered in, it's difficult to say if right-to-left applies to the packaging from the side of the cover art, or the side of the discs. If you pretend that the separate jewelcases are two sides of one digipack, then on the 'inside' you see the discs (face-up through the jewelcases), and on the 'outside' (the side of the obi) you see the CoverArt/CdBooklets of both. You can only open the cases from the cover art side, but then the discs are face-down (in your perspective) when you do open the cases.

See how I'm so incredibly confused that I try to find meaning from Kronekodow.com? The more you examine the physical packaging - the more lost you feel.

Here's the numbers I found on the shiny side of each CD...

Mori-Pact - TOCT-24781 1 C1
Kame-Pact - TOCT-24780 1 A4 ← EDIT: I guess this is the first one then?

Seeing as there is no real way to tell which disc is meant to be the first in play order, I thought that with these numbers you could somehow discern which one should be first in your own way?

I always saw them as a Heads & Tails kinda thing you know? both parts of the same thing rather than as separates.

I find the shiny side of a CD to be informative sometimes. I mostly check it nowadays so I can keep a little notepad entry of which pressing I own. I'm at work at-the-moment, and my bedroom computer (which I would normally remote-desktop to) has crashed, but I keep extra copies of most of my Shiina Ringo rips at work, including any human/software logs I made when I did the rips. According to my notepad entries that I'm insane enough to keep around...

My Mori-pact is
And
my Kame-pact is
Probably means your copies were somehow manufactured earlier than mine, even though I bought mine from the same vendor (CD Japan) before you bought yours. I think the obi also mentions the base TOCT (Toshibi-EMI CD) numbers. Everything beyond the 80 and the 81, are purely pressing-related. Maybe not dramatically different enough of a pressing that you should start calling things "first-press" and "second-press", but it just means they had to produce a new/different CD mold at one point (they lost or retired the previous mold) for basically the same digital master.

MD5s/CRCs are usually different between pressings even if the digital master is the same, because audio CDs are messy like that. But if you have two people with "TOCT-24781 1 C4"s, ripping both of them with the same CD/DVD drive model, or different drive models but with the appropriate Offset Correction, they will end up with the same MD5s/CRCs as each other.

Sometimes when things are officially called "first" and "second" press, they mechanically ARE the same press (with matching MD5s/CRCs), and are different for packaging/marketing purposes only. If we ever start comparing rips (with Offset Correction and checksums), we'd better damn well be clear about the manufacturing mold, rather than focusing on the packaging. Otherwise you have people who are new to Offset Correction, who are thinking that their rip might be wrong, when in fact their rip could be correct for the pressing they happen to own, but it simply isn't a 100% match of a rip for a different pressing owned by someone else.

I hate audio CDs sometimes. They have too many technical flaws that aren't even involved with the sound quality (and some flaws that are involved with the sound quality). Microsoft (given the chance) couldn't have screwed up Redbook much more than Sony/Phillips did.

Thanks for the explanation Glath and Bingo. I didn't really know the package was so complicated xD
It seems she didn't care much about the track order (unlike SS and KZK). Well, it seems completely optional then... But, somehow, I prefer to listen to Kimi wo Aisu as the "opening track"... Altough Komori Uta as "ending track" also works perfectly...
Meh, since they were sold together, I really thought there should/could be an official order.

Even if it's surely not a real album, I think Utaite Myoli is more interesting than we would can to understand.

I don't remember where I read this information, about a compilation of the Ringo's favourites songs. But this helped me to realize that this album is a perfect example about her musical influences. Surely they are not all [favourites songs], 18 song is - so far - not enough, but it's already a little something.

Maybe this twice-album is the best tool to understand how Ringo can create music.

And if I adore Shiroi Kobato and Chiisana Hitomi, the song wich gaves me shivers is Komori uta.

Haaha, it still cracks me up how she took the phrase "compact disc" and made it "Mori-pact disc" and "Kame-pact disc."

Is it bad that I still really dislike this? I like a handful of songs, but like...I could never sit through the whole thing at once.=/

Besides 'Chiisa na konomi', 'Kuroi Orufe' & 'Mr. Wonderful' I don't tend to bother with the others so much.

I think that's understandable, it's not like SR wrote these songs. But it's not as alien a sound to me as Variety. I'm posting really early on with this one, since I've only had it for a fortnight and have had other things going on, but my very vague impression is "I really like it". This is the faintest, vaguest review ever.

I love Kuroi Orufe (especially), the Onion Song and all of Mori-pact, it just has a really nice feeling to play it though. I Won't Last a Day Without You has Utada on it and is therefore good, they should duet again. This is great if you like duets (I love it when two singers of contrasting tonal qualities sing together). I like the "vinyl crackle" on that one as well. I heard Love is Blind early on in my fandom last year and it was a key track for understanding what SR was about.

In an odd way I wondered if Kareha influenced Meisai (the intro I mean) and Aisaika no Choushoku. Actually all of Mori-pact reminds me of Aisaika no Choushoku (looks up the arranger of that song while typing - see I wasn't talking out of my backside! :lol:)