Tamura Shigeru: Ursa Minor Blue (1993) [00MW-0002]

Sadly, this is the only animation available on Hi-Vision LD, clips on demo discs excepted .

I say "sadly", not because it's a bad program, but because it shows just how good animation can be in this format. Reports are that the response cards included with some later Hi-Vision releases asked "which of the following would you like to see on Hi-Vision LD", & among the choices were the Ghibli films — which only makes sense, given that the NTSC releases of the box set & Mononoke were made from HD masters. I continue to wonder whether there are test pressings of Nausicaa or Laputa out there.

Ursa Minor Blue does have the advantage that it never had to go through the film-to-video process, which can be a source of trouble. Instead, it was computer-animated, as the liner notes explain, frame by frame using Macintosh Quadra 900s & 950s, with hard drives of 650 & even 1000 MB. Recording each frame to tape as it was generated probably tied up one of Sony's HDD-1000 digital VTRs for the best part of a year.

The program itself is a faithful rendering of the work of Tamura Shigeru, an creator of artistic picture-books, done as a showpiece. A couple of other works of the same kind were released on NTSC LD as The Glassy Ocean (Kujira no Choyaku) & A Piece of Phantasmagoria. The plot is very simple, if mind-bending, involving the appearance of a new star which has turned the constellation of the Bear (although the illustration makes it look more like a beaver) into a horrible fish which is devouring the other denizens of the Amanogawa (River of Heaven, the Japanese equivalent term for the Milky Way). The visuals are the main attraction, & they are certainly well-executed ; the artist's economical style is rendered very faithfully, but I for one could not help but be tantalized by the potential of the same clarity of presentation applied to subjects with more inherent detail.

There are some definite questionable points to this release. One is that the audio is formatted as B-Mode 2-channel Dolby Surround. Why, when A-Mode discrete 4-channel is available? If stereo compatibility is really needed, there's always the option of adding a PCM track. Another is that there are no chapter marks. There are enough distinct segments in the program that several would be welcome. And it does seem a little strange that, after the end of the credits, the program runs out with well over a minute of black, until the frame counter reaches 45 000.


All in all, I think this disc is well worth watching at least once, but don't blame me if, once you've seen it, you rush out to buy the Blu-Ray release of Wings of Honneamise.

I watched it on youtube I cant believe how minimalistic this anime is. I agree its a poor choice to show off anime on hi vision.
Wings of honneamise bluray first pressing is a direct import from japan and its beautiful. It is one of the rare blurays that come with obi strip. There is also a rare hddvd version with the same packaging

I wouldn't say the High Definition is wasted on this program, but it's mostly a matter of clarity, sharp edges, & smooth gradients, rather than of revealing what you couldn't see in NTSC.

The one thing no release of Honneamise since the last LD Memorial Box has had (the first Blu-Ray I bought was the DVD/Blu-Ray combo box set, which indeed comes with an obi & a booklet — I bought that in preference to the HD-DVD, which was offered at the same price, because by that point it was clear HD-DVD was going nowhere) is the forty-minute segment accompanying the complete Ryuichi Sakamoto soundtrack with video of production artwork.