[Review] GACKT - Best of the Best Vol.1 Limited Album Box (Mild + Wild) ~DVD Vers.~
Ohaii everyone ! :)
Since a little bit amount of time since I've recieved the limited box of GACKT, I wanted to do a sort of review of the contains and everything that will have inside the two albums, wich is the DVDs, but also the songs themselves. I'm doing this review for those who haven't been able to buy the two newest GACKT albums. In fact, except that there's no barcodes behind the albums of the box, there's truly nothing that will change, so you shouldn't worry about this ! ^_^
This is a review based on my own interpretations of the things. I will try my best to be as much as possible fair and honest in my review, so I do hope you'll like it though. :)
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Okay then, to begin with this review, let's talk about the box itself. To be honest, I expected the box to be slighty bigger than that, but I guess having the item and seeing it through pictures, your eyes might be fooled. The box itself is, however, really fragile. If you press with your fingers one of the angles, the damage will be visible, like you've hit the box through something. But other than that, it's a really utterly beautifull box, I swear it. When you open it, you will come across the exclusive photoset that is included in it, wich contains in fact 6 photos. 3 are in the style of PV of Sakura Chiru, and the other three pictures left are also in the style of Claymore's PV.
Under those illustrations, you will finally see what you were searching for, the two albums, Mild & Wild, wich are taken from his recent "BEST OF THE BEST Vol.1" tour. But that's not all. You will see above a really beautifull and well made display unit that allows you to, on a shelf or on a table for example, to display like a little treasure your two albums.
About the packaging of the two albums, a special mention about the "two sided" idea. You will noticed on the picture above with the albums that, even unopened, the right CD case is reversed, it's not in the right side. In fact, if you hold your CD case like you will hold any others (or the Mild one here), you will soon realize that the pictures are not turned right. It's made in purpose, because the two albums are based on that theme, a left and a right side. While it's clearly apparent that you can join the two covers to get one full pictures, you will get to see the same things INSIDE the booklet, with many pictures with one side in the Mild & the other remaining part on the Wild album. You will get what I mean by looking at the scans I've made OVER HERE.
Now, I guess everything have been said about the contains of the box itself, I think it's now time to talk about the two albums, named "Mild" and "Wild". Each of these words reffer to a setlist, wich is different live and on the cd. I will start from the left and tell you what I think of the Mild album.
Best of the Best Vol.1 (Mild Vers.) :
This album come with 4 re-recorded songs that he made in the past, wich are 絵夢 ~FOR MY DEAR~, Last Song, wich is the Unplugged version (with more piano in case you don't know), the legendary and famous Vanilla, the beautifull MISSING ~笑顔を見せて~ and finally キミのためにできること (Kimi No Tame Ni Dekiru Koto).
I feel like the Mild album come with more "sweet" songs, but I feel like there's a balance as well between this feeling and the fact that the songs doesn't have a really specific order too. Giving a review about the re-recorded songs will be quite hard for me since I simply love them all. Special mention to Emu ~For My dears~, wich sounds deeper and even better than the first version ever released. Basically, re-recorded means GACKT have made again all the instrumental part, but also the singing part, wich contains some differences of lyrics. Like in Vanilla, the "ça va ?" part, wich in english means " Are you alright ?" is replaced by a "I love you...". Sure, it's only a detail, but it proves that it's not simply an autotuned version of it.
Talking now about the Mild DVD that come with the album, it's indeed a nice surprise. First of all, when you're in the menu screen, you can hear as a background music the intrumental version of Sakura Chiru. Actually, this version isn't included in the album, so it's a really nice surprise. The contains of this DVD is to offer you the experience of watching some PVs previously released in a DVD quality. There's a PV that was included in the past ONLY in fanclub versions of one of his single, wich is now available in this album, it's GHOST. Not only the PV is now not fanclub only anymore in DVD quality, but the nice surprise about it is that it's a version WITHOUT TERMINATOR ... wich means there's no more terminator footages all along the PV, the video now focus fully on GACKT.
But there's a difference of ratio between the fanclub edition of GHOST single and this version, click on the little picture below to see what I mean :
The screencaps above aren't resized or even edited, this is the RAW result when you screencap it. You can clearly see that the fanclub edition, while being in a 4/3 ratio due to it's black lines is clearer, but smaller. The album version, in a term of quality, have a full 16/9 ratio, but you can observe a slighty difference in a term of sharpness, but it's not that much.
Talking about the contains, the song Koakuma Heaven is included on the DVD of the album as a live version. it's basically the R&R II performance from the DVD, and in term of quality, I find it slighty inferior to the actual DVD of the concert. There's also of course the new Sakura Chiru PV included in the DVD, but I guess you've already figured out, right ? ^^
Best of the Best Vol.1 (Wild Vers.) :
Let's now review the Wild version of the album. Basically, this album work in the same scheme than his twin, the Mild Version. This version contain the re-recorded versions of Doomsday, Death Wish, Black Stone and the really old but classic Another World. I can't describe with words the feeling I've got for those re-recorded versions, but I would like to say that, while Doomsday and Death Wish is much better in my opinion than the original releases, I find, in a term of music and vocals the new version of Black Stone and Another World not as great than expected. They are not bad, don't get me wrong. ^^
Like in Mild Version, a song do have different lyrics, I'm talking about Another World here. In fact, this change is more a "corrected" version of some parts. If you listen carefully, the "You don't need another words" have been corrected and changed by "You don't need other words", wich is more correct in English.
The contains of this DVD is even more interesting in a term of new materials. If you were a regular customer, you wouldn't have got either of the Jesus PV or Flower promotional video. Please note as well that the Jesus's video ratio have been altered the same way than was GHOST earlier in my review. For the information, Jesus was included in the fanclub version of the single, and Flower (wich is here the "G only" version) were available on the (again) fanclub version of his album called REB:BORN.
Other than that, that DVD works the same as his twin, it contains many PV previously released in G's earlier releases, like Until the Last Day, or EVER. I should also mention that, since it's the exclusive song of the Wild version is Claymore, the instrumental version is playing in the background of the Menu DVD, wich is really appreciated too, like for Sakura Chiru.
That's all for the review. Here's now the positive points and the negative ones, because yes, there's indeed negative ones ! xD
Positive points :
- The box is really well made and beautifull in the inside.
- The Display Unit, wich make the whole thing really luxurious.
- The Re-recorded Versions of some songs.
- The set of the 6 pictures related to his two new PVs.
- Redemption & GHOST are part of these two albums. (Haha xD)
- The whole concept of the photshoot from these two albums is really creative.
- Having some PVs that weren't released previously for public sales are now available.
- GHOST in his exclusive version without any Terminator footages.
Negative points :
- The box is too fragile.
- The thing that keep the display unit at his right place can also be fragile when you replace the unit inside the box.
- Some Re-recorded songs are less "awesome" than some others.
- Not the same song order for Mild & Wild than his tour, wich still does have the same names.
- Black borders in PVs who are supposed to be total ratio 16/9 for videos wich were like this for their previous releases.
- The box is quite sold-out almost eveywhere, and if you find it, it's more than 12000 yens.
Well, I hope you have enjoyed that review !
If you have any more questions about it, feel free to leave your comment, and I'm gonna answer you as soon as I can ! ^__^
Since a little bit amount of time since I've recieved the limited box of GACKT, I wanted to do a sort of review of the contains and everything that will have inside the two albums, wich is the DVDs, but also the songs themselves. I'm doing this review for those who haven't been able to buy the two newest GACKT albums. In fact, except that there's no barcodes behind the albums of the box, there's truly nothing that will change, so you shouldn't worry about this ! ^_^
This is a review based on my own interpretations of the things. I will try my best to be as much as possible fair and honest in my review, so I do hope you'll like it though. :)
--------------------------------
Okay then, to begin with this review, let's talk about the box itself. To be honest, I expected the box to be slighty bigger than that, but I guess having the item and seeing it through pictures, your eyes might be fooled. The box itself is, however, really fragile. If you press with your fingers one of the angles, the damage will be visible, like you've hit the box through something. But other than that, it's a really utterly beautifull box, I swear it. When you open it, you will come across the exclusive photoset that is included in it, wich contains in fact 6 photos. 3 are in the style of PV of Sakura Chiru, and the other three pictures left are also in the style of Claymore's PV.
Under those illustrations, you will finally see what you were searching for, the two albums, Mild & Wild, wich are taken from his recent "BEST OF THE BEST Vol.1" tour. But that's not all. You will see above a really beautifull and well made display unit that allows you to, on a shelf or on a table for example, to display like a little treasure your two albums.
About the packaging of the two albums, a special mention about the "two sided" idea. You will noticed on the picture above with the albums that, even unopened, the right CD case is reversed, it's not in the right side. In fact, if you hold your CD case like you will hold any others (or the Mild one here), you will soon realize that the pictures are not turned right. It's made in purpose, because the two albums are based on that theme, a left and a right side. While it's clearly apparent that you can join the two covers to get one full pictures, you will get to see the same things INSIDE the booklet, with many pictures with one side in the Mild & the other remaining part on the Wild album. You will get what I mean by looking at the scans I've made OVER HERE.
Now, I guess everything have been said about the contains of the box itself, I think it's now time to talk about the two albums, named "Mild" and "Wild". Each of these words reffer to a setlist, wich is different live and on the cd. I will start from the left and tell you what I think of the Mild album.
Best of the Best Vol.1 (Mild Vers.) :
This album come with 4 re-recorded songs that he made in the past, wich are 絵夢 ~FOR MY DEAR~, Last Song, wich is the Unplugged version (with more piano in case you don't know), the legendary and famous Vanilla, the beautifull MISSING ~笑顔を見せて~ and finally キミのためにできること (Kimi No Tame Ni Dekiru Koto).
I feel like the Mild album come with more "sweet" songs, but I feel like there's a balance as well between this feeling and the fact that the songs doesn't have a really specific order too. Giving a review about the re-recorded songs will be quite hard for me since I simply love them all. Special mention to Emu ~For My dears~, wich sounds deeper and even better than the first version ever released. Basically, re-recorded means GACKT have made again all the instrumental part, but also the singing part, wich contains some differences of lyrics. Like in Vanilla, the "ça va ?" part, wich in english means " Are you alright ?" is replaced by a "I love you...". Sure, it's only a detail, but it proves that it's not simply an autotuned version of it.
Talking now about the Mild DVD that come with the album, it's indeed a nice surprise. First of all, when you're in the menu screen, you can hear as a background music the intrumental version of Sakura Chiru. Actually, this version isn't included in the album, so it's a really nice surprise. The contains of this DVD is to offer you the experience of watching some PVs previously released in a DVD quality. There's a PV that was included in the past ONLY in fanclub versions of one of his single, wich is now available in this album, it's GHOST. Not only the PV is now not fanclub only anymore in DVD quality, but the nice surprise about it is that it's a version WITHOUT TERMINATOR ... wich means there's no more terminator footages all along the PV, the video now focus fully on GACKT.
But there's a difference of ratio between the fanclub edition of GHOST single and this version, click on the little picture below to see what I mean :
The screencaps above aren't resized or even edited, this is the RAW result when you screencap it. You can clearly see that the fanclub edition, while being in a 4/3 ratio due to it's black lines is clearer, but smaller. The album version, in a term of quality, have a full 16/9 ratio, but you can observe a slighty difference in a term of sharpness, but it's not that much.
Talking about the contains, the song Koakuma Heaven is included on the DVD of the album as a live version. it's basically the R&R II performance from the DVD, and in term of quality, I find it slighty inferior to the actual DVD of the concert. There's also of course the new Sakura Chiru PV included in the DVD, but I guess you've already figured out, right ? ^^
Best of the Best Vol.1 (Wild Vers.) :
Let's now review the Wild version of the album. Basically, this album work in the same scheme than his twin, the Mild Version. This version contain the re-recorded versions of Doomsday, Death Wish, Black Stone and the really old but classic Another World. I can't describe with words the feeling I've got for those re-recorded versions, but I would like to say that, while Doomsday and Death Wish is much better in my opinion than the original releases, I find, in a term of music and vocals the new version of Black Stone and Another World not as great than expected. They are not bad, don't get me wrong. ^^
Like in Mild Version, a song do have different lyrics, I'm talking about Another World here. In fact, this change is more a "corrected" version of some parts. If you listen carefully, the "You don't need another words" have been corrected and changed by "You don't need other words", wich is more correct in English.
The contains of this DVD is even more interesting in a term of new materials. If you were a regular customer, you wouldn't have got either of the Jesus PV or Flower promotional video. Please note as well that the Jesus's video ratio have been altered the same way than was GHOST earlier in my review. For the information, Jesus was included in the fanclub version of the single, and Flower (wich is here the "G only" version) were available on the (again) fanclub version of his album called REB:BORN.
Other than that, that DVD works the same as his twin, it contains many PV previously released in G's earlier releases, like Until the Last Day, or EVER. I should also mention that, since it's the exclusive song of the Wild version is Claymore, the instrumental version is playing in the background of the Menu DVD, wich is really appreciated too, like for Sakura Chiru.
That's all for the review. Here's now the positive points and the negative ones, because yes, there's indeed negative ones ! xD
Positive points :
- The box is really well made and beautifull in the inside.
- The Display Unit, wich make the whole thing really luxurious.
- The Re-recorded Versions of some songs.
- The set of the 6 pictures related to his two new PVs.
- Redemption & GHOST are part of these two albums. (Haha xD)
- The whole concept of the photshoot from these two albums is really creative.
- Having some PVs that weren't released previously for public sales are now available.
- GHOST in his exclusive version without any Terminator footages.
Negative points :
- The box is too fragile.
- The thing that keep the display unit at his right place can also be fragile when you replace the unit inside the box.
- Some Re-recorded songs are less "awesome" than some others.
- Not the same song order for Mild & Wild than his tour, wich still does have the same names.
- Black borders in PVs who are supposed to be total ratio 16/9 for videos wich were like this for their previous releases.
- The box is quite sold-out almost eveywhere, and if you find it, it's more than 12000 yens.
Well, I hope you have enjoyed that review !
If you have any more questions about it, feel free to leave your comment, and I'm gonna answer you as soon as I can ! ^__^