Master Anime on Blu Ray Thread

Too expensive, and no Geneon english dub equals no buy.

Well, I am definitely interested in anime on Blu-ray, especially Akira and GITS (my favorites, along with Cowboy Bebop).

However, at $60-$70 each, that is a tough sell. They better be miles better in the PQ and AQ departments in order to justify that kind of premium. In fact unless they are completely re-mastered, I think I'll wait.

Geneon is the US distributor, so I can almost promise you, he's talking about DUB.

HA. I got into anime a while ago watching Samurai Champloo on AS.
Then I saw some of the originals with subs. In my opinion the mis-match of dubs takes you out of the viewing experience too much. Subs all the way.

YES! *thumbs up* that's the ONLY way to watch anime!

SAC has awesom american voice acting. But after watching the entire series in HD with hi fidelity sound in Japanese there's no going back.

Isn't mospead part of macross?

And why would you watch DBZ or Yu gi oh in Japanese?

No, Mospeada has nothing to do with Macross.

Yu-Gi-Oh! is an awesome show. It features Egyptian mythology, and I am a sucker for anything with Egyptian mythology in it. Plus the cards are pretty cool, and the character designs just down right rock. The Pharoah's Memories arc is simply the best arc. In fact, I went out and imported all 52 Japanese DVDs from CD Japan.

As for DBZ, it depends on the saga. I like almost everything through Cell Games, and then the show got suckish with Buu.

[quote=Dr Kain]No, Mospeada has nothing to do with Macross.

QUOTE]

I'm thinking of Robotech: New Generation(whatever the 2nd/3rd american part was). My bad.

EDIT: I know macross and robotech aren't the same, just got jumbled.

I'm definitely getting Akira. I'd love Macross Zero in HD, too.

Not that I personally would want to listen to it, but Akira is listed as having an English track. Since it's 5.1 I'd imagine it's the newer dub and not the old one with the guy who voiced Leonardo in TMNT as Kaneda.

As for the price, it's not much higher than anime movie DVDs in Japan (Honneamise actually costs the same as the old DVD). A small price to pay to get a professionally created HD encode of a title that's not a multi-million ticket seller, IMO.

And I'm so relieved that they're not using the same HD DVD limited bitrate for the titles being released on both formats... High bitrate AVC for the win.

Can't wait for Escaflowne and Vampire Hunter D!

Personally I'd much prefer a hand tuned low (relative to MPEG2 or AVC) bitrate VC-1 encode as opposed to what Japanese post houses usually do, which is set the bit rate and then just let it run, without doing any QC at all. That way we would have gotten, for instance, a copy of GitS 2 without the MPEG2 pixelation that exists in the BD version, despite it's high bitrate.

I think I'll wait for the US releases for these. None of these are must have titles for me.

You're the first I've heard complain about the Innocence BD, I passed on it myself since it's too slow of a movie but others here have praised it. Got any visual evidence to back up your claim?

I haven't seen the disk myself, but several people on this forum have mentioned it. Josh Z mentioned it in a post on this forum. I had no luck finding it. He doesn't make a big deal out of it in his review, just mentions some "minor video noise". But he also mentions that several scenes have "noticeable color banding artifacts". He still reviewed it as a great looking disk even if "the Blu-ray isn't quite as big an improvement over the DVD edition as hoped." But the point isn't how major or minor this PQ issues with the BD version of GitS 2 are, the point is that simply cranking the bit rate without QCing, which is par for the course with Japanese post houses, isn't automatically preferable to a hand tuned VC-1 encoding. Case in point Warner's HD-DVD release of Brave Story. No banding, no noise, just the most perfect looking anime I've ever seen. A higher bit rate wouldn't have done jack to improve on the PQ of Brave Story, because it's absolutely perfect.

I'd love Macross Zero in a North American release of any kind. I'm not holding my breath waiting for any Anime to get here in high-def, unless you count Disney releasing a Miyazaki/Ghibli film.

Considering a lot of Anime discs go for $30 per hour, I wonder what kind of premium the local release companies think they get get away with for glorious HD.

That's not much to go on. Sounds more like HD DVD fanboy FUD to me.

And how do you know how the Japanese encode their releases? I have hundreds of Japanese released anime DVDs and a few BDs, and they put most US encoding to shame, especially the DVDs.

Unless you were talking about their live-action releases, which I don't really care about but they're hardly relevant to the subject.

Oh grow up! Not only did you completely miss the point I spelled out, but you fell back on the lame "You must be an enemy fanboy" accusation when your assumptions were questioned. That's two strikes that don't paint you in the best light buddy.

Though I thank you for exposing your immaturity there, so I can keep myself from wasting anymore of my time on you.

Maybe you belong on a gaming forum, looking to "expose the fanboys" of whichever console you happen to not like?

You're the one basing your opinion that a VC-1 encode would be better based on one person's review of a title you haven't seen, especially when issues such as color banding could be inherent in the master. You can think whatever you like of me, but if you can't back up your claims about Japanese encoding with something better than neither I nor anyone else has a reason to believe you.

You should try reading posts before simply reacting to what you expect to be said. I didn't say one would be better than the other, I was reacting to YOU saying that one would be better than the other.

And how exactly is one supposed to go about backing up a general consensus?? It's something generally acknowledged and accepted by people familiar with the question. It's not exactly possible to provide a link to a conclusion that has been reached over time and after becoming familiar both with Japanese releases and the way Japanese post houses operate.

Besides I don't particularly care whether or not you accept my assertion on the matter. Your acceptance certainly has no connection to the veracity of my conclusion. It's really not my place to educate you on the subject. It's your privilege to take my assertion with a grain of salt, and if you're curios enough on the subject, to educate yourself. Otherwise you're free to continue believing whatever you want to believe. Which again is of no importance to me.

Now please allow the thread to get back on topic.

Even if this were true for most anime releases, I'd still rather they at least have the option to allow for a high bitrate encode. And with all the Bandai Visual releases I own and the excellent reviews of Innocence, whatever they're doing has obviously worked very well in the past and I trust their decision to use a high bitrate AVC encode over HD DVD bitrate handicapped VC-1 a lot more than an HD DVD fan's opinion posted on the internet.

Being a fan of something, which you obviously are, doesn't necessarily mean that somebody who happens to offer up a differing opinion or simply a different point of view shares your mindset.

We should all strive to grow out of the "my toys are better than your toys" mindset. And by we I mean you.

I wouldn't watch anime if they didn't have dubs. Reading interferes with me actually watching the show or movie and sometimes I don't finish reading it before it changes and I miss things.
I know some dubs are really bad one being Knights of the Zodiac when it was on Cartoon network, everyone said to many things were left out, I had never seen it, I still really liked the show but it was cancelled before they came close to finishing it. Now when I watch it again I will get Saint Seiya which everyone said is not edited anywhere near as bad as CN version.

I don't have a problem if subs are on it as long as there is a dubbed version also. Most people that will watch anime in the US will only do it if it is dubbed, If they only released subbed version they would probably lose 70% of their sales or more.

I must say that I'll always choose the dub over sub - regardless of quality (Sailor Moon, Love Hina, etc..) - Not sure why but I just tend to find it easier for me to enjoy. I have a low attention span so I'm guessing that may have something to do with it.

With that said, I'd love to pick up all 3 of those discs, even at the going prices being as expensive as they are.

Trust me, Macross Zero is not worth it. All it is is eye candy with a piss poor story that has absolutely NOTHING to do with Macross other than Roy being in a few scenes.

I really think it depends on the quality of the dub or the sub and the type of program it is as to which I chose.

I hate DUBS to death... maybe because i'am in Québec and everything is dub here and make me sick.. LOL! If they are no sub, i'll just wait for them to be released here...

I already have Zero on DVD (though I substituted some fansubs for the horrible boot subs it came with) and I thought the story was ok. :shrug: But then I like Macross 7, too (though that would most likely not HD suitable)...

Akira on BR would be a nice addition as long as it is Japanese with subs.

Is there any chance these titles will be remastered for release in HD? If not, I don't see how they can be worth it.

Also, it's always nice to have the choice of subs or dubs. That is really the best option, to me.