The old-school anime DVD/BD news thread.

[llj]

Hopefully V Gundam will also get a BD release. Wasn't it released in Japan not too long ago? That's my worry.

[llj]

Whaow this forum has really slowed down of late.

Anyway, I'll be the one to post some old skool reports this time:

Discotek--

Arcadia of my Youth on DVD and BD
Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer on DVD/BD

[usamimi]

Sorry! I was away at Afest! But I have another to add: Viz finally confirmed the Ranma oavs & movies are coming on bluray!! I'm so excited, I've been hoping they'd release them soon!

[llj]

It should be also noted that Discotek also has Chargeman Ken...

I know that show has become sort of a running joke online, the question is does it deserve it's "so bad it's good" rep or is it just plain bad?

[usamimi]

I was wondering the same thing! I've somehow never seen it myself xD

[davemerrill]

I'm excited about My Youth In Arcadia - I bought the VHS back when AnimEigo released it, and was never super happy with the transfer - it's just not a great looking transfer, even for VHS. I had a chance to see their DVD and it looked about the same, sadly. A BD of MYIA, well, that's a whole new ball game. I do wonder if it's one of these deals where Toei uses their HD master that involves zooming in a little on the picture to get a fake 'widescreen' effect - these late 70s - early 80s Toei pix weren't shot in widescreen, but god forbid the modern world be forced to deal with original aspect ratios.

Charge Man Ken really is so bad it's good. Animation errors, nonsense story, jammed together with spit and duct tape, it really is the "Plan Nine From Outer Space" of anime. Maybe the "Robot Monster" of anime.

I've been busier than usual and have not been able to keep up with the message board, sorry.

[DKop]

I'm glad to hear that Vengence of a Space Pirate dub is gonna be on the Arcadia bluray, meaning I will have 3 versions of that movie in my collection. I own a DVD release of the Space Pirate dub on DVD from a defunct company called East to West DVD, and I found that sucker for $1.30 at a dollar store a few years ago. It is a straight up DVD of them copying the FHE VHS release and putting that on disk. There are no menus, the movie instantly starts up when you pop in the disk, and when it ends... it repeats back to the beginning with no kind of transition. It's a mess of a release from a "fly by night" publishing company on the levels of DigiView Entertainment. Who knows if they had any right to release this film to begin with.

A few years later, I got the DVD of the Arcadia movie that I bought from a friend of mine from Animazement a couple of years back that is the official AnimEigo release, so now with the Bluray, that will make three that I will own.

[llj]

I do wonder if it's one of these deals where Toei uses their HD master that involves zooming in a little on the picture to get a fake 'widescreen' effect - these late 70s - early 80s Toei pix weren't shot in widescreen, but god forbid the modern world be forced to deal with original aspect ratios.

I'm of two minds about this. If these were originally shot in 4:3 and then "matted" for widescreen when shown in theatres, one could argue that the animators did actually still have widescreen in mind, even if they shot and animated it in Academy ratio. My suspicion is a lot of them were shown in theatres in 1.66:1.

In cases like this where either aspect ratio is quite acceptable, it's always an ongoing debate in the film community as to which is the preferred one. I lean *slightly* towards original theatrical aspect ratio because in many cases where a film is shot in Academy ratio, the top and bottom areas weren't always "meant" to be seen.

[davemerrill]

I do wonder if it's one of these deals where Toei uses their HD master that involves zooming in a little on the picture to get a fake 'widescreen' effect - these late 70s - early 80s Toei pix weren't shot in widescreen, but god forbid the modern world be forced to deal with original aspect ratios.

I'm of two minds about this. If these were originally shot in 4:3 and then "matted" for widescreen when shown in theatres, one could argue that the animators did actually still have widescreen in mind, even if they shot and animated it in Academy ratio. My suspicion is a lot of them were shown in theatres in 1.66:1.

In cases like this where either aspect ratio is quite acceptable, it's always an ongoing debate in the film community as to which is the preferred one. I lean *slightly* towards original theatrical aspect ratio because in many cases where a film is shot in Academy ratio, the top and bottom areas weren't always "meant" to be seen.

Hard to spot those boom mikes in animated films, I guess.

When Galaxy Express screened in Toronto a few years back, it was a 35mm print that certainly seemed 1.66:1 - not widescreen, by any means.

Matt Murray was working on one of his CPF videos about Galaxy Express, and he had me rip some video from the laser discs of the film for it. At first I was like "what are you talking about" when he said the Discotek DVD was a cropped HD transfer, but darned if he wasn't right.

[SteveH]

'cropped to create faux widescreen' sucks. I'm a die-hard OAR (Original Aspect Ratio' person bar non.

It just messes up the composition of the frame. In the case of the GE999 movie it just shifts things enough to take some of the magic out of Rin Taro's direction. When he put some open space over the head of a character he MEANT to do that.

Blah blah. I'll be sad if My Youth in Arcadia suffers the same fate. I know Discotek is helpless if that's the master Toei gives them.

It seems we've really entered the twilight zone. At first video companies and studios resisted making things letterboxed or otherwise widescreen because people would complain about all that 'missing' picture (you would not believe some of the anger some people would express about that!) and those horrid black bars across the top and bottom of the screen.

NOW, now, it seems there's a subset of the home video audience that can't handle movies that were filmed 'flat' or anything pre-Cinemascope and Panavision et al. A square picture on my $5000 curved 3D TV?! NEVER! NEVER!

Idiots.