The Old School Otaku Lounge

davemerrill wrote:
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.

1.66:1 is still matted, and is still quite a bit of information on the top and bottom lopped off if originally animated in 1.33:1.

That said, if it screened in theatres in 1.66:1, I'd want it in EITHER 1.66:1 or 1.33:1, not 1.78:1 (or wider.)

Many anime films that were definitively screened in 1.85:1 in theatres (like Ghibli's) were actually still originally animated in 1.33:1. In storyboards, what they would sometimes do was draw a box around the area that would be displayed in theatres just so they can make sure the composition wouldn't be completely compromised when matted, but they still draw some extra stuff outside the box anyway, because probably (this is just my theory though) in those days they also knew that when the movies eventually aired on TV and released on video, that must also be taken into consideration. I think they were much more cognizant of how their movies would look on TV and figured that in the long run that would be the primary mode in which their films would be viewed. But that doesn't mean that the compositions in 1.66:1 were invalid.

SteveH wrote:'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.

I actually haven't seen a whole lot of anime releases that completely changed the OAR (in terms of how they were shown in theatres) aside from Toei's stuff (and the OAR issue isn't even the worst part of Toei's GE999 restoration). I've got a bunch of anime films on blu ray in 1.33:1 (Ninja Scroll, Vampire Hunter D) and I'm sure even a few in 1.66:1.

So tiny anime pub Anime Midstream is going to be re-releasing B'tx. Supposedly with a new dub that will include a few of the old dub actors. Interesting!

Hope to get that Beautiful Dreamer BD! Altought I already have the French special edition that comes incased in a velvet-like yellow stripped material reminding us of Lum bikini... seeing it in BD must be awesome as well.

Wow Revenge, that sounds awesome!

The Street Fighter II movie bluray pre order is currently $19.99 on Amazon! Great price. http://amzn.to/2cVRsuf

Sentai announced they'll be re-releasing Green Legend Ran next February! http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/20 ... es/.107913 kinda surprised me, that's a title I'd assume Discotek would put out (if at all!)

usamimi wrote:Sentai announced they'll be re-releasing Green Legend Ran next February! http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/20 ... es/.107913 kinda surprised me, that's a title I'd assume Discotek would put out (if at all!)

I suppose I'm not surprised given that it's an OVA, but I still wish they could get it on BD. A lot of these lesser known OVAs will never get an HD master, though.

Yeah, I'd love to see it get a BD too, but I wonder if the materials for a BD upgrade would even be available for it? I dunno if it was ever popular enough that they kept the animation in good shape...

usamimi wrote:Yeah, I'd love to see it get a BD too, but I wonder if the materials for a BD upgrade would even be available for it? I dunno if it was ever popular enough that they kept the animation in good shape...

Yeah, I think the materials for many OVAs weren't preserved well. For a lot of them, only 2nd generation masters exist today.

It's really a shame. Sometimes we're lucky, like Discotek remastering Fatal Fury THEMSELVES for a dvd/BD release, but I know not every company has the time or money to do stuff like that.

usamimi wrote:It's really a shame. Sometimes we're lucky, like Discotek remastering Fatal Fury THEMSELVES for a dvd/BD release, but I know not every company has the time or money to do stuff like that.

They got ahold of the original negatives. I'm actually surprised they let Discotek handle it, given how finicky most Japanese studios are about their stuff. I guess Fatal Fury TMP isn't a big deal in Japan anymore so they don't really value it as much. The first 2 FF OVAs DIscotek released on DVD were sourced from only composite masters by comparison.