Old Shows on BluRayz

[gaijinpunch]

So, anyone want to comment on these? I've seen some side by side screen comparisons, but never the real deal. The Rumiko Takahashi TV stuff from the 80's/90's is being released on BR, at rather high costs (of course). I'm not totally ruling out buying Maison Ikkoku though. What is the process of remastering these things? Seems cumbersome, to say the least.

[llj]

The process isn't that much different from many other older films-to-HD conversions. Older anime was "shot" on film (16 mm for TV, 35 mm for films...or thereabouts), so it's a simple case of taking the old negatives or, less ideally, an available film print and doing a digital HD conversion for a blu ray release. But yes it does cost money as with any creating of a new HD master.

Blu ray is not just an improvement of clarity in linework, it affords better colors too. Chances are the colors will "pop" much more than any previous release of the product.

It's much more cumbersome to try to convert early 2000s anime to 1080p HD since they were animated digitally (no camera negatives or film print source) and already at a set (inferior) resolution. In fact, there still hasn't been a true "HD native" conversion of an early 2000s anime. The technology is not there yet to make older digitally animated anime into 720p or better. Instead you would have upscales of basically 480p sources.

I won't tell you whether it's worth it to buy Maison Ikkoku on BD or not. If you just want the show at a decent picture quality, the DVDs are probably good enough. But if you're looking for reference quality material and have money to burn, BD is a very good long term investment. A lot of these old anime on BD probably cannot be improved much further for a home viewing format. That said, I would never pay $1000 for an entire anime TV series.

[kndy]

I was about to buy DVD sets of UY, but after watching "Yu Yu Hakusho" and "Patlabor" on Blu-ray....I know now that I rather have Blu-ray versions of everything. It just looks so much better!

As for conversions...I know one of the most expensive conversions of an older anime to Blu-ray was Akira... I do know that Jeff Kleist was one of the few Americans I know who was in Japan to talk to Bandai about the remastering. His article can be found here:

http://www.akira2019.com/akira-2009-remaster.htm

I also know that the conversion of Dragon Ball Z and the cleanup involved was quite expensive that FUNimation abandoned it at vol. 2.

[gaijinpunch]

Thanks -- quite informative. The MI sets are "only" 30,000 each at Amazon, but aren't released for a while. I might just get them used when they're in the 23,000 range. I don't really consider myself an anime fan any more (and definitely not a hard core one). I watch things I like (and Sci-Fi is one of them, across the board) but this show I've always been able to come back to no matter what. It was with me through a very transitional time in my life, so nostalgic value is through the rough. Spending 2 years subtitling will do that I guess.

I've got the Akira BD, and it's clear they spent the dough on it. I have the US release... as per usual, I like the Japanese box art better, but couldn't justify the cost. Akira is one of those films that the studio has done an excellent job of keeping up. I've seen a remastered film print twice in the last 3 years, and both times the sound and video quality were stunning. Nice film grain, not a lot of "crap" on the screen, and minimal audio popping. Only problem is they don't show it enough.

I'm not too big on any post 2000 series, so I guess I'm all good there. Anything I'd want to purchase on BD has definitely been done before that. I just wish Japan would quit gouging itself. I'm not surprised though... Japan doesn't know how to do anything cheaply, except buy foreign produced shows and sell them at reasonable prices.

[usamimi]

I wish I had more older anime on blu-ray...so far we have a few Miyazaki films on blu-ray (Nausicaa is especially gorgeous, I was really blown away at how good it looked, and how superior the sound quality was), Akira, and Paprika. I think that's it, unless you count the DVD/blu-ray combos I got of "Eden of the East" (which isn't a "beautifully" animated series, so I could take or leave having it on blu-ray or not). Honestly, I'm not really that into buying newer anime on blu-ray if it's a TV series, because most anime TV series lately don't have amazingly detailed quality, imo. (I'll make an exception if it does, but nine times out of ten, I'll just be cheap and get the DVD release instead.)
I read on Amazon that Discotek's Galaxy Express DVD release is actually comparable to the Japanese blu-ray in picture quality, and after watching mine, I'm inclined to believe them--the picture is really stunning for a DVD.

[llj]

The only problem with Galaxy Express 999's HD remastering is that there is obvious evidence of de-graining and DNR. Sure, the colors look nice and bright, but there's actually a loss in detail. Nausicaa's HD master is what an older anime should look like on blu.

Anyway, with Patlabor being currently released, and Gatchaman coming soon, there will be better representation of older anime on blu. Don't forget BV's Wings of Honneamise and Sentai/Maiden Japan's upcoming re-release.

Animeigo really needs to decide what they want to do with Bubblegum Crisis. They still hold the U.S. rights and are still hemming and hawing over what to do with it. The blu-rays have been out in Japan for several years now.

[usamimi]

Oh, I completely spaced (lol no pun intented) that I have the old Honneamise blu-ray, too. That is a really nice blu-ray. I'm curious to see if the new blu-ray will come with any different extras that weren't released with the first one. If so, I might consider double-dipping.

Ah, That's true about Galaxy Express. I'm kinda sad that there's no blu-ray here for it, but maybe if Discotek's other blu-rays sell well enough they'll consider it sometime? They are going to be re-releasing the Unico movies on blu-ray, so I'm really looking forward to that!

YEAH, I would definitely love to see a BGC blu-ray set here. I think they'd sell really well, considering that classic BGC was a lot of people's first anime, and they have it streaming on Hulu. An HD re-release seems to be a no-brainer! I wonder if they just don't have the money or support from the Japanese licensers to do so? Animeigo's thing as of late seems to be mostly Samurai movies, so it makes me wonder just how into the idea of doing a new anime release they'd be. :/ (Kind of depressing, seeing as their NAME has the word "anime" in it, and they were technically one of the first anime companies in America...)