Akira comparison *PIX* - Page 2

Oh for fu.....

I know this film well. REALLY WELL. I know this is a picture quality thread but I gotta rant real fast on the audio.

This whole hypersonic thing is a joke. This film sounds better than it ever has, but that has almost NOTHING to do with it. (maybe 1%)

Half of the sound effects are do overs from the original theatrical release (I'm actually angry they replaced the thundering sound of Kaneda's bike starting up at the beginning with more of a crackling electric sound... too wimpy!) Some of these popped up on the last release, but I think there's even more now.

The soundtrack is much better off this time around, but I SWEAR they're evening using some slightly different musical cues.

And BTW, if you like your surround speakers mixed loud, this is the film for you. The rears are almost TOO active.

Overall, I think I like it, but it kinda takes me out of the film when I'm expecting one sound, and get something else... I'm sure I'll have more to comment on later...

I don't know about any of that, but I actually liked some of the foley work that was done for the English dub. That's about the only thing I liked about the dub,(the score sounded flat and compressed in the mix).

Isn't the LPCM 2.0 track the original theatrical audio? It's also Dolby Surround (Pro-logic) encoded according to the Japanese product listing, so the surround info is probably a bit more subdued as well. That track may be more to your liking.

How about a 1959 animated film, Sleeping Beauty. Or are you saying it was meant to be this soft? I doubt it. As has been mentioned in this thread it looks like the softness is due to DNR and improper care of the film.

(sigh) It might have to be. I just flipped through a few more chapters, and they COMPLETELY SWAPPED OUT the belgium women's choir during Kaneda's visit to Tetsuo's memory at the end of the film. (The one where Kaneda has beaten up the bullies to get Tetsuo's toy back) Instead, it's more of the music cue "Requiem" with the organ playing over it... It used to be a touching scene and now it's intent has been drastically changed.

I'm mostly surprised no one else has commented on changes like this.

Perhaps not soft, but the color palette was definitely designed to be muted.

And I'm guessing Disney has a few more resources available. This isn't A+ material, but I'm still glad I purchased it.

Also, how many millions do you think Disney spent on remastering Sleeping Beauty, versus the amount of money that Bandai/Honneamise spent on Akira?

I remember re-watching Akira in theaters when it was re-released by Pioneer many many moons ago, but it is too far back for me to remember how that print compared to this BD release.

Someone gave an example in this thread of another old anime movie that doesn't have this problem, Patlabor, released one year after Akira. Which looked just fine on BD without the resources of Disney.

1988 is no excuse.....Sleeping Beauty anyone

It just looks unusualy soft in general to my eyes I am usualy easy going with PQ as most of you know, but this just seems a bit lackluster IMO.
I dont spend much time in the PQ tier thread so that is not what is causing my issues with the PQ.

As some have already theorized, it's very likely the original elements they worked with were simply in better shape. They likely didn't have to muck with it much because it was already fine. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don't (remember the print damage already happening to Star Wars when they pulled it out to take a look?)

That's what I said.

It is not a one to one relationship. We do not know the original conditions of the film negatives, what kind of restoration they did to the film, the original intent of the filmed content, and we could go on and on. Just because something came out at around the same time does not mean that you will get the same quality out of it.

Look at release like Neon Genesis Evangelion (DVD) and Ghost in the Shell (Blu-ray). They had to redo these releases because of poor quality original masters and both received extensive redraws.

Hell, even the recent release the Ghost In the Shell: Innocence (2004 theatrical release) was incredibly inconsistent in quality. At times I felt like someone had replaced my Blu-ray disc with the DVD.

EDIT:
Another thing to consider: Are we actually watching these movies, or are we just comparing screenshots? If the later, then we are completely at the mercy of the person who captured the frames. One person may capture only the pristine images, while another may capture the image which is more indicative of the overall quality.

For the third time I already mentioned damage from film storage as a possible reason. And I also mentioned DNR as another reason. And I doubt any animated movie was meant to look this soft.

Yes, you made the comment once (quoted a second time, and mentioned again in your reply to me), but that was not the quibble with your Disney quip and reference to Patlabor. Just because two films belong in the same medium, and one is released a year later, does not mean that they are equatable.


And again, are we comparing stuff we are actually watching, or merely making comments based off of a few frames someone has captured?

All Japanese animated Blu-rays I have watched which have predated CG scanning and coloring (from Honneamise (1987) to Memories (1995) to Escaflowne (2000)) have all suffered from major visual issues, from scratches and hairs, to obvious cell layers and shadows, to noise and contents being slightly or overly soft (Paprika being a good example).

This goes back to the Disney comment. Disney will spend the time and money to make sure their transfer of a beloved classic is quality. The Japanese animation market keeps shrinking year after year in both the United States and Japan, so they are less likely to put in the time, money, and resources required to really make these older films shine.

I say it looks okay for being a film based animated film from another country.

Well at least now we all seem to be on the same page that this movie doesn't look its best. We just disagree on wether it's excusable or not. I'm of the opinion that better storage care and less DNR is reasonable for any company.

"It's very soft compared to other Bandai Visual transfers of 1980s theatrical anime films", maybe? I only saw a few shots, but Wings of Honneamise struck me as looking similar to Patlabor: very sharp and with visible fine grain. Memories looks pretty decent too, though it's got a bit of EE.

The only Bandai Visual transfer I can think of that's probably less impressive than this is Ghost in the Shell, but that makes sense considering the unique digital/analog process that was used to create it. GITS has no "negative" in the traditional sense, so its' hazy but grainy nature can be forgiven by the technological vaccum that created it.

The restoration crew have already admitted here that they used NR as a means to get rid of dirt; "After an automated pass, where the computer identifies what it believes to be print damage or debris and then eliminates it, the real work begins."

This is the best Akira has ever looked, easy. I'm just not convinced it's as good as it could have looked. As I've said before, it looks okay, but certainly doesn't look like $50. (Probably sounds like it, but I don't have the system to make that matter right now.)

Is DNR really a practical problem on a cel-animated title? Obviously, it can always be overused (say, to remove grain), but outside of that, if it's being used for dirt and scratch removal, I would think the results could potentially be detail-reduction-free. The majority of specks and blemishes are going to be smaller than the fields of uniform-color cel paint they reside in, so how often will there even be any high-frequency detail at risk?

Agree. If it were $20-25 I'd swallow hard, look past the soft PQ and bite the bullet. For fifty bucks though I want more than 'as good as it's ever going to look given today's technological limitations.' I'll stick with the DVD.

DNR can be just as disastrous to animation. http://www.lyris-lite.net/dvnr.html

It's worth noting that I walked into a Best Buy yesterday, plucked it off the shelf, and walked out. With tax, $32.

Not quite 25, but certainly not 50. That price is for this week only, next week it's back up to $35, but that's still cheaper than 50, and a lot of this board has access to BB.

Take a gander at Kei and Kaneda's faces in this lossless shot. They're just as horrified by the clumpy grain and smudged outlines as I am.

Dude that is some of the worst EE on anything DVD ever. It looks terrible. The BD is huge improvement just for the clean edges.

Why the *&^$ is it windowboxed??? Someone needs to tell Bandai that most HDTVs now are fixed pixel displays and have no overscan.

It was from the sequence at the beginning of the film where Tetsuo is sitting on Kaneda's bike. Sold most of my cels on ebay a few years ago.

I am also unhappy with the windowboxing. I can zoom the picture with my external processor, but I shouldn't have to.

i honestly don't know why people are complaining. soft? the f'in movie itself is soft. looks like a great transfer - no noise, a little bit of grain, no apparent DNR abuse, no EE at all. looks nice and clean with vivid, balanced colors to me. looks to me like this shows plenty of signs of being faithful to the film presentation. oh sure, it's not "TIER ONE LIKE KING KONG WOOOooooo" but some movies just don't look like king kong. deal with it.