Master Anime on Blu Ray Thread - Page 8

http://blog.affenheimtheater.de/en/2...ge-comparison/

Watched my copy last night and was absolutely blown away by the Japanese HD track, everyone listening to the English dub is definitely missing a big part of the movie!

+1.

Even the best dubs I've heard haven't a stitch on the original characterization. I can't stand 'em.

True, but I was talking about the amazing detail of the TrueHD rather than the voice acting.

Lack of Japanese HD track is the biggest thing preventing me from diving in on localized anime BDs. I was sorely tempted to pick up ExMachina for $15 at Walmart until I saw that it only has HD English track, no HD Japanese track. Looks like I'm going to have to import them.

So Canadian version is different from US version? US versions only had DD English dub 5.1 and DD Japanese 5.1.

could be. I remember the Japanese track was not as good as the English track. Whether the English was HD I don't recall.

Any chance on them releasing the Gundam 00 Blu-rays in the US now that they have dubbed the first season?

For the most part. I do think the Watanabe series (i.e., Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo) have very high-quality dub casts (especially Steven Blum) and scripts, to the point where I'm happy with either. Same goes for Azumanga Daioh, where they at least attempted to adopt regional accents in a nod to their Japanese counterparts.

BTW, Blu-ray.com has an "AKIRA - Behind the Remaster" article (separate from the review) up as well.

I agree, they're among the best dubs around and much better than most, but they still don't cut it for me. Two words out of Jet Black's mouth, in his original Japanese voice, and I couldn't settle for any different sound!

Doubt it, at least not for a long while. The Japanese Blu-rays are over $70 for three episodes. No one's going to pay anywhere close to that in the US, and if they're much, much cheaper then they're going to have trouble selling the Japanese release.

Does anyone have any experience with the new blu-ray releases of old catalogue anime OAVs or TV series (not theatrical releases) that was still predominently cells rather than CG? eg: Sonoda OAVs (BGC, Bean), Gunbuster, Zeorymer, Dancouger box set, Zeta box set etc.. Are they noticeably better than the original DVD/Laserdiscs? There are quite a few of them that I have nostalgic value and wouldn't mind picking up like BGC, Zeorymer and Zeta if there is a significant improvement.

For some reason I was thinking they were a different region. Oh well.

It's funny because I've always had that stance. I will always choose Jap language and Eng subtitles... but that changed when Ghost in the Shell debuted in theaters here in the U.S.

I find to this day, I cannot watch GitS unless its the dubbed voices.

However, Cowboy Bebop or Samurai Champloo (to name a few more recent titles), and I have to go back to the Jap language with Eng subtitles again.

I've only seen screens, but BGC was shot on 35mm and looks great; brilliant compared to the DVDs which were all from very poor LD masters.

Zeta Gundam is pretty much what you'd expect from a 1980s TV production shot on 16mm. Rather soft, coarse grain (they probably reduced it a bit), colour fringing and a fair amount of film/cel related artifacts like dirt, dust, scratches and so on:

An article on the Akira remastering process:
http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=2394

Thanks for the feedback. Not surprisingly OAVs fared better with transfers than old TV series. I'm tempted to pick up BGC given your review. Its 14.7K yen price tag is quite high but I guess you do get all 8 volumes. I'm a huge Zeta fan, but paying $500 for 2 box sets is a bit too rich for my blood, especially if as you say it doesn't benefit that much from a blu-ray transfer.

I felt that Gurren Lagann dub improved the series 10 times over the subtitled version.

Is the Samurai 7 english dub any good?

The BGC box-set is pretty awesome. It's at least as good as my Japanese LD Box, but I'll keep that for sentimental reasons.

I would pre-order Japanese releases of Ghibli films. I would consider a Char's Counterattack with subtitles. It'd love to see them redo the audio with a lossless multichannel release.

I like how so much aime being broadcast is Japan is now in HD. I've been downloading the Ippo - New Challenger series in 720p and it looks pretty damn good. I hope it gets released domestically on Blu-Ray. Any other recent series being aired in Japan in HD worth seeing?

Those are not necessarally in HD. Lot of fansub group upconvert their video and thus create fake hd file. Check the user post on anidb.net for your anime.

More likely, the stations upconvert the video for airing in HD. This has been done for a lot of series that actually were animated in HD, such as Macross F (although they switched to actual HD airings partway through).

There seems to be a rerelease of Patlabor 1 & 2 out. Is there a difference between them and the Blu-ray + SD DVD version?

I think Bandai re-released all the early Blu-Ray boxsets in standard Blu-Ray cases, this time only the Blu-Ray disc. (Their first releases were 2-disc boxsets with a Blu-Ray and DVD version in standard Armary cases housed inside a solid cardboard box)
The discs are supposedly exactly the same. Here's some of the titles released in cardboard boxsets and now re-released as single discs in standard Blu-Ray cases:

- Royal Spaceforce (Wings Of Honneamise)
- Patlabor
- Patlabor 2
- Patlabor 3 (WXIII)
- Ghost In The Shell
- Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade
- Avalon

I was hoping it'd be somewhat of a re-release similar to Ghost in the Shell 2 import (you know, with the minor improvements and what not).
Oh well..

I don't know about you guys, but I'm ready to start a letter campaign to Disney about getting a frickin' Studio Ghibli Blu-ray or two goin' on over here! How long's it gonna take?!

Tell me about it, give me Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away and Porco Rosso already. I'll take those 3 as the first batch of releases.

Funimation is rereleasing the Samurai Champloo (DVD) boxed set, hopefully they will go the full 9 and release it on Blu-Ray too, with a decent transfer. Cross your fingers.

Doubt it, one thing has nothing to do with another. I don't think that one in particular has a HD master. I'll be happy when they release what's promised. I'm looking forward to Blue Gender and Witchblade.

I've seen a 720p rip of Zeta. I haven't compared it outright to the DVD, but it does look pretty nice. About as good as expected.

I have the Gunbuster movie bluray. Again, I haven't outright compared, but it looks very good. It has a soft grain throughout, is clear enough that one can make out an eyelash stuck to the cel in one show, and the sketch sequence at the end almost looks like bare paper. There's also some nice depth in some shots thanks to the added detail in the backgrounds. Though this is all thanks to the DVD remaster. Now if they'd only release the actual series.

Char's Counterattack looks absolutely amazing over the US DVD.

I was completely unaware that BGC was on Bluray. I'll have to check that out.