I finally received my 'express' shipment today.
With the way HMV Japan clusters everything together in one surround layer of shrinkwrap, without any other packing material between the goods and the outer box, I can't find the merit on how/why they charged me 12,900yen for shipping. I've had a heavier stack of magazines shipped to me from Tokyo for less than that, and that was while oil prices were higher.
I'm not going to use HMV to buy vinyls anymore, unless it's something nobody else has. At least they gave me exactly the items I ordered, after shipping out two days late, and never asking me if I wanted to approve a hiked-up shipping charge.
*edit*
Originally Posted by Jesse
Is YesAsia's stock level usually correct? I was wondering if HMV will refund me but don't have stock, if I should be ordering the DVD box from yesasia? (Even though its freaking AU$200)
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YesAsia can probably be trusted for anything they indicate as "Usually ships in 1-2 days". If they mention more days than that, then the item is on backorder, and YesAsia overestimates backorder availability all the time. I still have my $12 store credit refund from when I tried to buy Stem a couple years ago.
*edit*
The 100-page booklet is a little better than I expected. Lots of alternate shots from old photoshoots, that didn't get featured with the original CD booklets. I wouldn't say the alternate photos are any better or worse, but they're a little refreshing after you've seen the same standard photos hundreds of times. I'm indifferent about the stickers and bonus pieces of paper.
I noticed there's this partitioned-off section of cardboard within the inner box, like you could fit a whole additional 100-page booklet in there, and I was thinking "hmmm, I wonder what's inside, and how you open that up", when upon inspecting it further, I heard an electronic voice come out of the
one side of the inner box I hadn't looked at it yet. DUH-uhhhh. They've got to stash the speaker and the light sensor in there
somewhere. The voice didn't actually kick in when I first opened the box, because I was in a dimly-lit room.
It's not easy to describe what make the MoRA cardboard sleeves more or less nice compared to cardboard sleeves in other releases, except that the MoRA sleeves are more... two-dimensional (on the front at least). No indentations or creases like you often find with cardboard disc sleeves that are packaged and sold individually. The fronts of the MoRA sleeves are perfectly flat and smooth, like the scans you could get off of these would be at least as good as with the original CD booklets.
Both of the MoRA boxes have the exact same outer dimensions, even though they include a different amount of discs. I haven't opened my CD box, and I don't think I ever will. I'm not going to believe the 44.1kHz/16bit got noticably 'remastered'.