Let me tell you. The EXACT same thing rarely hits multiple territories. It gets remastered or they murder the bit rate or they leave out special features and the packaging of US releases it’s typically very poor. If you buy this and a cheap western version comes out there will be things about that JP version that will always be better. You will have paid $80 to get those things but they will be better.
Sharing a BD region with Japan has caused some issues. BD releases in the US have been forcibly delayed or worsened to help protect Japanese sales. It's no surprise why. Discotek is basically a boutique publisher in the US with prices that they protect and sales basically never go below pre-order prices. Anyway they are released the first season of City Hunter for $100 retail, but the best price is about $76. The Japanese release is over $500 retail. The Japanese release is on more discs, but I've done direct comparisons with US and JP releases. It's pretty unnecessary. In very rare cases we have seen US companies handle the work for a BD. Not the case with City Hunter but Kimagure Orange Road was that way for example. It has no Japanese release.
As a long time anime fan I am all too aware of the terrible packaging. It's...getting better but only for some companies. All I ever want is a standard case with trays. You don't need anything else. Digipaks are rubbish. Those weird huge cases ADV seemed to love are the worst.
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I agree. No need for rusty steel books or Digipak triptych that disintegrates slightly every time you touch it. Also, anything where the discs slide into cardboard forcing you to flex the disc slightly to bend it in and out ever time...poison.
Jewel cases, standard amarays are all you need and you can build some very good box sets around that. I cannot understand packaging that costs more and it’s worse in every way. Eye of Folger, for example.
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Anyone who likes Akira and doesn’t already have the soundtrack on SACD or DSD is nuts.
This explains it all. Now I know why everybody I ever meet is telling me this, guess I'll have to pickup a copy of the soundtrack due to Dr. Signofzeta.
You can call me professor.
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The one I have is the (quad rate!) DSD. If you have a full “hypersonic” system the experience at high volume levels is nearly religions. It’s a great OST on any format but it you want to hear those...shikashukashuka sorts sounds like...inside your eyeballs, you need headphones that can produce freqs equal and above whatever the roll off is of your ears. I don’t even know what to compare it too.
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Since we're at it, I think I'll bring my copy of Akira Criterion CAV to my studio next week for some additional screenshots. I don't think it differs too much from the new release as far as the colors go (minus HDR of course).
I agree. No need for rusty steel books or Digipak triptych that disintegrates slightly every time you touch it. Also, anything where the discs slide into cardboard forcing you to flex the disc slightly to bend it in and out ever time...poison.
Jewel cases, standard amarays are all you need and you can build some very good box sets around that. I cannot understand packaging that costs more and it’s worse in every way. Eye of Folger, for example.
Thankfully that last one tends to not be a thing in anime. I have a few releases like that for other things like Indiana Jones and had I known I would have even paid more for another release or bought the I individual releases.
I don't care for releases where they would have a cardboard box and then a bunch of thin cases with one disc in each but that is probably the least of all evils and it comes to old anime releases.
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Must say that, judging from these captures, I am not convinced to upgrade from my 10+ year old UK Blu-Ray. While the former release still has its share of issues, the new one suffers from serious noise reduction that I do find very frustrating. At the same time, improvements in terms of sharpness and color timing are not very apparent. I'm fully aware of that film restoration is very expensive and takes time, plus I have no idea what kind of limitations the team had to face so I'm not saying they've done a bad job. It's just that the end product isn't enough for me to buy it once more. Oh well, saves me some money at least.
Must say that, judging from these captures, I am not convinced to upgrade from my 10+ year old UK Blu-Ray. While the former release still has its share of issues, the new one suffers from serious noise reduction that I do find very frustrating. At the same time, improvements in terms of sharpness and color timing are not very apparent. I'm fully aware of that film restoration is very expensive and takes time, plus I have no idea what kind of limitations the team had to face so I'm not saying they've done a bad job. It's just that the end product isn't enough for me to buy it once more. Oh well, saves me some money at least.
Must say that, judging from these captures, I am not convinced to upgrade from my 10+ year old UK Blu-Ray. While the former release still has its share of issues, the new one suffers from serious noise reduction that I do find very frustrating. At the same time, improvements in terms of sharpness and color timing are not very apparent. I'm fully aware of that film restoration is very expensive and takes time, plus I have no idea what kind of limitations the team had to face so I'm not saying they've done a bad job. It's just that the end product isn't enough for me to buy it once more. Oh well, saves me some money at least.
The thing with productions like this is that the colors don’t match from cut to cut. The dark cuts are grainy from behind under lit and over processed at the photography stage. Sometimes even focus is an issue. The only way to make a fully stabilized normalized quantized 4K file out of it is to basically make software that will essentially trace the films lines and homogenize all the color. At that point you have what Disney does which is to say that it’s better than ever before but also almost a completely new thing. Anime is cheaper stuff than Disney but needs more work to smooth out for HD/UHD because of how rough the original is.
At some point you have to just realize that we’re asking for something we don’t want. There is no Lawrence of Arabia quality source therefore the only way to have a Lawrence of Arabia Blu-ray Disc is if it’s essentially fabricated and will always be unnatural. Not to mention that you’re basically taking a magnifying glass to drawings that were on A4 or slightly larger paper. There’s nothing to see that closely except flaws!
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Waiting on Julien's review first before I put in an order.
Watched it tonight!
The image is really, really clean and steady but it does looks a little less colorful than it used to but it may be because of the HDR->SDR conversion. Will try the BD version another time and run the CLV LD in parallel to switch from one to the other via the Radiance VP.
Also had to adjust my speakers, the dialogs on the central speaker were half lost in the loud multi-channel soundtrack. The TrueHD 5.1ch 192kHz (announced at 24bit reported at actually 16bit?) brings a LOT more surround efects/ambiance. The DD 5.1ch is more focused on the front with less dynamics, of course. Haven't tried the Linear PCM Surround (probably a port from the Laserdisc?) or the English soundtrack.
Nice English subtitles, quite good.
English subtitles on the bonus disc only apply to trailers and TV spots, not the remaster making of :-/
It's been 22 years yet the animation details are still amazing. The "Akira Sound Clip" is a direct port of Akira: Sound Clip (1988) [LM025-8108] I think. They apologize for the video noise in the introduction.
Weird to see Tokyo 2020 Olympics cancelled and the army calling for a state of emergency in Tokyo!
Thanks for the review Julien. The HDR concerns me too, at least from the clips I've seen so far on YouTube. It looks a bit more muted than what I think everyone would be used to. Kaneda's motorbike for example, I thought would be a nice, cherry blood red and not leaning so much towards maroon. His clothes as well seem to look this way too. Then again, the set does come with the Blu disc so you always have that to fall back on if you don't get on well with the HDR I guess.
Thanks for the information too on the bonus disc. I guessed the Sound Clip would be what was on the LD. The 1988 credits sequence too. What a shame the documentary has no subtitles. The booklet is a miss for me too because of the nihongo. If it was all 'kana I would be just about okay. Throw the kanji in though and that's me done!
Was the UHD/HDR version supervised and approved by Otomo himself? Does it mention it in the documentary?
It's a shame his son Shohei didn't get a little sketch or two in the book, or help with the cover design or a disc Easter Egg perhaps. Would have been an interesting touch. If you haven't seen his work check here:
Still on the fence about importing the 4K release at the minute. I think it's more to do with the expense. Over €100 to get it to me. If a US release materializes and it's garbage, I'll import. If it doesn't, I'll still import. Just want to see what happens first I think. If only it wasn't so expensive...
Didn't they do the same thing with Transformers the movie, changed hot rod's colors to a ridiculous pink and then say this IS how it was supposed to be
That’s the issue with HDR and old movies...you’ve got a LOT of space to fill with nothing but noise and nobody wants to see the noise. When the original cartoon only used 128 colors you have to wonder why you want to show it on a TV that can display a billion colors.
Substance recently said in another thread “louder isn’t better” in reference to LD’s “low” dynamic range being better suited to TV speakers than real stereos but what if the original source WAS a television? What could better represent it? That’s basically what anime is. The drawings are made for the pallet they were displayed with when created. Make the pallet 1000x as big and...mostly it just lets you see how much the color was always changing in the original.
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Must say that, judging from these captures, I am not convinced to upgrade from my 10+ year old UK Blu-Ray. While the former release still has its share of issues, the new one suffers from serious noise reduction that I do find very frustrating. At the same time, improvements in terms of sharpness and color timing are not very apparent.
I'm with you, I'll be sticking with the old BD (and the JP LD) as well. You can easily see that details such as the buildings in the background in screenshot #2 are blurrier on the UHD. It's a shame that so many remasters of old anime have DNR like this. I guess it's not as bad as some DNR-ed Blu-rays, but it's pretty pathetic that a Blu-ray from more than 10 years ago can have better detail than a new UHD. Probably not the first time this has happened though.
If you dont have the 1080p, the BD 4K is a must not for the HDR forget it but for the 4K remember it comes from a 70mm film. Anyway LD versión still magic. Agree the first English dub is the best ever....-- just when my cow is reaching the green line aawww --....Kaneda
There are issues with some Streamline dubs but overall Carl did my favorite dubs of the 80s. I love the cast he used and his mixing style which was done to sound good period and less of an attempt to duplicate the Japanese original. The overall low sound quality though, terrible hiss and often converted to mono, I can’t say I appreciated that very much.
Totoro and Cagliostro...Streamline always with those two.
BTW, dubs are weird and re-dubbing the same movie every decade or so is super weird.
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