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Old 2009.01.03, 12:49 PM   #21
Glathannus
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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.
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