Here are some of the anime related CD-ROMs that are available. US releases can be purchased through your local anime store. They can probably order Japanese releases.
Where CD-ROMs listed below are in dual format for Macs and PCs, what I write refers only to the Windows proportion.
As these disks were originally designed for Japanese MS Windows systems, programs on this disk will not run on English versions without additional support. Files are still fully accessable as is. See here for more details.
Pioneer PIRW-1008 7800 yen (without tax)
Microsoft Windows
This is a very nice CD-ROM containing a lot of information. Features a quiz, many pics, various sound files, caracter info, voice info, some QuickTime files and more!
Pioneer PIRW-1013 7800 yen (without tax)
Mac or Microsoft Windows
The main item on this disk is a RPG game. Unless you understand Japanese well, you will not be able to play it. Although it appears to run at first on non-Japanese Windows systems, it crashes later.
There are some images on this disk, and in hidden directories are some more goodies. There are some more small pictures and sounds, ideal for customising Windows. Many screen savers are also there, including Pretty Samy, Ryoohki, Kiyone and Mihoshi, Washuu Crabs and the cast at a hot spring.
Click here to see screenshots from the RPG game.
Pioneer PIRW-1009 4800 yen (without tax)
Mac or Microsoft Windows
This is a calendar/organizer program. But who cares as there are around 80 megs of files in bitmap (*.bmp) form ready for you to do whatever you want with them.
Gainax 6800 yen (without tax)
Mac or Microsoft Windows
Contains tons of images and sounds from the series. In total there are 64 megs of BMPs, 37 megs of JPGs, 10 megs of WAVs, a few icons and also a set of screen saver. All the screen savers feature the same image set, but applies them in a different number of ways.
Two more volumes of this CD-ROM have been released.
Wishbone 4800 yen (tax?)
Microsoft Windows
A voice clock, featuring the voice of Inoue Kikuko. Dunno what exactly it does as I can't get this disk to work even using the methods detailed near the top of this page. The filenames are encoded in some funny way that absolutely requires a full Japanese operating system. English Dos and Windows just doesn't like it at all. Only 6 bitmaps and one wav file are accessable.
It is still possible to access the files. I have only tested this in a Dos box within Win95. Use xcopy /s to copy the CD-ROM to your hard disk. Then, use the ren command to rename everything to normal characters.
???? KB-001 4800 yen (tax?)
Mac or Microsoft Windows
Features tons of samples of Hisakawa Aya, includes sounds suitable for various windows system events. Many pictures and AVI videos too.
???? KB-006 4800 yen (tax?)
Mac or Microsoft Windows
As above, but featuring Orikasa Ai.
ISBN 4-06-208370-1 3980 yen (inc tax)
Mac or Microsoft Windows
Since when did CD-ROMs have ISBN numbers?
Anyway, it's a fairly basic screen saver. The program code takes about 100k of your windows directory. It is basically a slide show program. The pictures are copied onto your hard disk. The 37 of them are stored in BMP format and take up 25 meg! (a quick comparison with highest quality JPEG only took 7.5 megs.) The pictures are very nice but I'm not sure it was worth the money buying it, even getting 25% discount like I did.
Fun House Inc. FHCF-2306 3000yen (inc tax)
Mac or Microsoft Windows
This CD is in a format called CD+. This appears to normal CD audio players as a normal CD audio disk. To a suitable computer, it appears as a CD ROM. This differs from conventional CDROMs as the data is not stored as audio track 1.
The audio section has 8 songs by Yokoyama Chisa. The data section is more interesting, consisting of a fairly basic multimedia program. It allows you to view a photo gallery, the song lyrics and also has a quicktime movie of one of the songs ashita no yuuki.
Pony Canyon K58P5183 5800 yen (ex tax)
Mac only
Yes... I bought a Mac CD-rom even though I only run Windows! This comes in a LD size package, inside there are 5 LD size pictures of her in addition to the disk itself.
For those of you out there who don't have a Mac, you can find software which lets you read Mac format disks on other computers. But to make things more complicated, this disk uses Japanese characters in the long filenames. As it is, the parts that are easily accessable are two 170 Meg MOV files, a load of pictures and a few AIF sound files. There are two smaller 10 meg MOV files which I have not been able to access yet...
Software Sculptors
Mac or Microsoft Windows
Um... this is a screen saver. Featuring A-ko and friends. Not much more to say really is there? The screen saver features various short clips taken from the anime. There are also some longer animations of the main songs viewable from a jukebox.
I think it's a bit expensive for what it is. A Ranma and Tenchi screen saver is also out by the same people.