Whoa. Some of the early posts sound very young. I'm old though, and it seems like no-one here saw the film in it's original theatrical release. I did a few times, and it was inconsistent and not the sharpest from the very beginning. Neuromancer and Chirpie made some great points.
It also seems like no-one here really has an understanding of old optical 2d animation (considering the nature of the site that's not a criticism, rather a statement of fact) and how it was filmed. Multiple layers of cels due to number of discreet elements and effects and multiplane can mess with focus and even shift the colour of lower-placed cels (at Disney they even corrected for both cel yellowing with multiple layers and colour shift through using different stocks). More characters, more effects, more detail, more potential for error. You don't get 'cel shadowing' with scanned, CAPS 2d! With old school optical processes, every time you add a layer you add a generation and remove quality. This was even the same with multiple exposures in optical printing. And if there was one mistake you had to start all over again. Even things as simple as a multi-frame dissolve between scenes had sometimes outrageously obvious discolouration and degradation (but many just seem to think it's OK and 'normal' - these people never noticed a 'cigarette burn' before Fight Club gave the game away either), and that was only 1 generation down. This is why films from Star Wars on used essentially 65mm (Vistavision) film for effects shots, even if the rest of the movie was 35mm. Star Wars did suffer from unstable film stock for the final 35mm though.
Which leads me to Vazel's ridiculous comparison of Sleeping Beauty to Akira. Sleeping Beauty WAS a 65/70mm film. It was always about 4 times the quality of Akira (35mm). I can't remember what 'field' each was animated on originally, although for starters SB was animated with MUCH more image size/quality for the actual animation, as it was one of the first scope films, and had an even bigger image area than what scope finally became (2.35 to 2.4). So forget even the 'storage' comments Vazel, there was a huge disparity to start with. I remember the prints of Akira, and they weren't mindblowing back then. The movie was though!
As for Honneamise, I only saw it once, and only on video. What I remember from that one though is that while it had some beautiful compositions, the actually complexity of the elements wasn't as challenging as Akira. And like Xylon said - too soft compared to? Compared to my memory of the original prints, it looks pretty damned good. It's not like in the digital age, Vazel. The cel isn't an indication of the film - that's the tail wagging the dog I'm afraid!
And grading a sequential/progressive line for year to visual quality is simplistic in the extreme! Come on, Vazel and Toe! You can argue that after the 50s and with the newer colour stocks of the 60s and 70s colour film took a big step BACK, quality and reliability-wise. The reason some big 40s and 50s films look so great is that they used the 3-strip technicolour process, which is ridiculously better than the later colour stocks as the 3 black and white separations (which aren't anywhere near as prone to fading and discolouration and warping) make for much better and more consistent (to the original answer print) restoration.
As far as the sound (haven't sat down to listen to it yet), does the stereo mix have the old English dub? The newer dub has different voice actors in addition to effects doesn't it?
I must admit, I'm so used to the original Fox dub of Totoro that I find it harder to warm to a newer dub. I prefer subs though, even for animation. Just gives you the first-generation tone and mood and honesty, which is lost through translation and other actors' interpretations. Ever tried to watch a Kurosawa film dubbed?! I can't do it, call me a snob...
Ramble over...