What are you Watching?

[greg]

I'm staying at the in-laws' place in the cool mountains of Nagano-ken for a 3-day weekend. I watched plenty of neat crap today: Devil Hunter Yohko 3-6, Crusher Joe OVAs 1 & 2, and even caught an episode of Yamato 2199 on TV. I don't know which channel it's being shown on, but it's on Sundays at 5:30pm.

The end to the 2nd Crusher Joe OVA had the "whoops, we thought that bad guy was dead already" trope when the soldier who'd been shot in the chest shows up unexpectedly to screw things up. It is a product of the '80s though, so it really hadn't been overdone by that time. Fantastic space battles. It's a shame there weren't more made, especially since there was a Crusher Joe + Dirty Pair novel. That would've been an awesome anime.

Devil Hunter Yohko overuses the "pretty girl late for school" anime trope. The artwork does indeed change for episodes 5 and 6, giving it a more generic '90s feel to it and adding those pointy ends on her eyes. And who are those other two girls on the cover of volume 2? There's a white-haired girl wearing a bow and a ponytailed girl with two swords connected by a chain. Well, whatever. It's a fun series, and it's a shame that only 6 episodes were made. Well, 5 actually, since 4 is just a collection of music put to video.

The episode of Yamato was one I haven't seen yet. It's a difficult show to understand without subtitles. The action is fantastic though, resembling more of a movie. Dare I say it, but 2199 is more interesting and compelling than the original.

[greg]

We finished Gundam: 0080 last night. I hadn't seen that series in many years. It's only 6 episodes long, but it makes a very powerful statement. What I was thinking about this time around is why didn't they haul away the busted Zaku that was abandoned in the forest? I can't imagine it could have escaped anyone's notice. The colonies are huge, but not that huge. The boy can walk to the crash site on foot by himself, even. Why would they just leave it sitting there?

Tonight we watched Kurenai no Buta/Crimson Pig. It was my daughter's first time seeing it. She got a little bit restless, so I am concerned about taking her to see Kaze Tachinu on Saturday. She is pretty excited about going to a movie theater, though. I hope it goes well...

[_D_]

Well, you can always take her to Pacific Rim instead. You want to leave an impression with her, no? I remember dinosaurs from some obscure movie my Mom took me to back in the 1950s. That cemented a couple things into my life forever such as palaeontology and movies. Well, let us know how the outing goes...

[greg]

The very first movie I went to as a child was Superman. I think I was 4. I fell asleep, and I fell asleep every other time I'd tried watching it. The next movie I watched was Empire Strikes Back, and that movie made me who I am. I think my kid is excited about the experience of going to a movie theater. I'd take her to Monsters University, but they won't be showing it in English where I live... I'd have to go to Tokyo for that. A new coworker/friend is considering coming along, so she'll have a new friend to sit with, at least.

[llj]

I bought the Patlabor OVA BD. What a beautiful transfer. I love it when old cel animation is in HD. People complain that you can see dust and dirt and animation mistakes more in old anime on blu-ray, and that older anime wasn't "meant for" HD, but I LIKE seeing those mistakes and I think anything that gets us closer to how the cels looked right off the animators' hands is always a good thing.

Here's a visual comparison from Twitchfilm's review of the BDs compared to the old DVDs http://twitchfilm.com/2013/05/blu-ray-r ... fresh.html



The old DVD wasn't that bad at all, but I think the more people see how old anime looks on blu-ray, the more they'll like the idea of seeing more old anime in HD. Sucks that they couldn't include the Oshii commentary track though.

[_D_]

This would be fine as long as they do the right thing and do a brand new encode from a cleaned up negative. I think some of us are worrying that will not be the case with many new releases. Instead, they will cheap out and reencode from the existing encode. I dunno how that's going to look with a maximum bitrate of 10 Mbps vs. the 15 or 20 Mbps of a true high definition encode. I guess we'll just have to wait...

[llj]

Are you talking about standard definition upscales? (That is to say, taking a DVD source and simply upscaling it for a blu-ray release) Many companies find upscale releases a waste of money. Sentai and Discotek have gone on record and said that they absolutely will not release a blu-ray unless the source is HD native. So they aren't just going to take an existing DVD source and upscale it. The cost for producing blu-rays is too much to waste on an upscale, so it's not "cheap" to release an upscale, it's actually a waste of money.

So there are monetary reasons for making sure they release anime blu-rays which are HD native.

This bodes well for Sentai's Gatchaman blu-ray release. Of course, you never know what can happen in the future. Never say never, as they say.

[_D_]

Yeah, was worried that Sentai was going to upscale the existing DVD encode. As you say, time will tell...

[_D_]

Weirdly enough, I just dug out some Patlabor episodes that I recorded from a local cable station some years ago. Might sit and watch them. The old VHS tapes I see at several pawn shops and Sally Ann stores in town. For the DVDs, I think they are part of my bud's collection, so if I want them, they are there. Are they releasing the series as well on BD or only the OVAs?

[llj]

The first dozen or so episodes of the Patlabor TV series will be released on BD in the U.S. in a week or so. Early online reviews seem to be good. No problems reported unless you watch the dub.