Anime where region B BD is better than US BD?

[Glorian]

I'm wondering about titles where the actual discs of a UK/AUS BD are better than the US release of the same title? Things like video quality, subtitle quality, or extra episodes/footage. Basically, cases where it would make sense to replace the US release. Releases from other Region B countries can be included too, but only if English friendly.

Some examples I know of:

Video quality:

Belle BD UK
Cardcaptor Sakura UK
Dragon Ball Super: Broly UK (removed green tint)
In/Spectre season 1 UK
Inu Yasha TV UK
Josee, the Tiger, and the Fish UK (but there's dynamic range compression on English dub)
Jujutsu Kaisen season 1 UK
Metropolis UK
Outlaw Star UK
Penguindrum UK
Tiger and Bunny the Beginning UK
Tiger and Bunny the Rising UK
Tower of God season 1 UK
Vision of Escaflowne movie UK (but only in OOP CE)
Vision of Escaflowne TV UK
My Hero Academia: World Heroes Mission NL
Cowboy Bebop the movie IT


Extra footage/episodes:

Violet Evergarden TV UK (uses home video masters instead of broadcast masters, includes extended version of final episode)


Subtitles:

Cardcaptor Sakura UK (uses Pioneer subs instead of NISA translation)
Dragon Ball Super: Broly (fixed some translation issues, but not all)
Violet Evergarden TV UK (better retranslated subs, instead of the worse Netflix translation)


Any other examples?

Edit: Not sure whether to count the cases where something extra is included on DVD. It is something extra included, but it's not on BD, and typically, because of PAL to NTSC issues, I would think the US DVD would be preferable.

[BigOnAnime]

You may want to point out the UK release of Violet Evergarden also has better subs as IIRC it was retranslated from scratch, rather than using the Netflix subs, which were not good. The reason also why it has the extra footage is it's using the home video masters, the FUNimation release is the TV version without the animation fixes as it's mostly a clone of the Madman release.

Another instance of superior video quality is Jujutsu Kaisen, the VIZ release is significantly inferior to the JP and UK Blu-rays and the Crunchyroll streams (a certain reviewer baselessly assumed otherwise).
https://slow.pics/c/KJJ3USuQ

[Edit]Oh, speaking of TV versions, the US release of Liz and the Blue Bird is the theatrical version. Does the UK release use the home video version? If so, that's another one to import.

Fireworks is in the same boat, if the UK release used the home video version instead of the theatrical version, yet another one to import.

[Glorian]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

[Edit]Oh, speaking of TV versions, the US release of Liz and the Blue Bird is the theatrical version. Does the UK release use the home video version? If so, that's another one to import.

Fireworks is in the same boat, if the UK release used the home video version instead of the theatrical version, yet another one to import.

Unfortunately, the UK version of Fireworks is also the theatrical version, apparently; I previously looked into that hoping it would be different, and it isn't. I don't know one way or the other about Liz and the Blue Bird.

Thinking about it, I seem to recall some comments about Cowboy Bebop TV UK ( and AUS?) having a different framerate, and less DNR, maybe? I seem to recall some negative comments too; not sure if it was an improvement overall or not.

[SpaceDandy]

Every english release of Cowboy Bebop suck in one way or another. Don't limit yourself to the UK market, you should consider France, Germany and Italy too.

[Glorian]

Originally Posted by SpaceDandy

Every english release of Cowboy Bebop suck in one way or another. Don't limit yourself to the UK market, you should consider France, Germany and Italy too.

No, anything non-English friendly is useless and irrelevant to me, and is not the intention of this list. This is for people wanting the best version of a title they can drop in the player and watch as is. So French, German, and Italian releases don't count, unless they happen to be English friendly.

[SpaceDandy]

Best of luck with your mediocre releases then.

[MOONPHASE]

I think the UK version of Tenchi Muyo OVA came with the Mihoshi Special whereas the U.S. one definitely did not include it.

[CWCprime]

Dragon Ball Super: Broly (2018). The UK disc doesn't have the infamous green tint that plagues a lot of home releases for Dragon Ball, and I believe some translation errors are fixed in the subtitles.

[BigOnAnime]

Originally Posted by CWCprime

Dragon Ball Super: Broly (2018). The UK disc doesn't have the infamous green tint that plagues a lot of home releases for Dragon Ball, and I believe some translation errors are fixed in the subtitles.

Unfortunately one of the biggest errors wasn't fixed, the last one here. That translation error also made its way into the English dub.

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

https://twitter.com/AnimeAjay/status...09929830223873

https://twitter.com/AnimeAjay/status...11850968203264

https://twitter.com/AnimeAjay/status...13866461294592

https://twitter.com/AnimeAjay/status...14533099843584

https://twitter.com/AnimeAjay/status...15440894025729

[CrashOveride95]

Originally Posted by MOONPHASE

I think the UK version of Tenchi Muyo OVA came with the Mihoshi Special whereas the U.S. one definitely did not include it.

It did not, it is a clone of the US BD

[NLScavenger]

Josee, the Tiger and the Fish UK BD has better video quality (CR BDs from 2021+ suffer from poor debanding and other issues), but the English dub track suffers from dynamic range compression.

Cardcaptor Sakura uses the new 4K remaster. The Japanese 5.1 track is however borked on the final 3 episodes (surround channels are delayed by less than 1ms), but it's perhaps only noticeable if you downmix to stereo.

Don't know how the UHD compares, but the BD of Belle has way better video quality than the US release. The UK Deluxe Edition has more extras than US Collector's Edition.

Dutch BD of My Hero Academia World Heroes Mission has better encode. It's the theatrical version, but I'm not aware of any differences in the home video version. English subtitles are included.

OOP Italian release of Cowboy Bebop The Movie has better picture quality and the included English dub track doesn't have the issues of the still in-print AU/UK release.

OOP UK release of Metropolis has better encode and the Japanese 5.1 track.

Vision of Escaflowne TV UK BD has better encodes, though there is a tiny drop out on the Japanese track in one episode.

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

[Edit]Oh, speaking of TV versions, the US release of Liz and the Blue Bird is the theatrical version. Does the UK release use the home video version? If so, that's another one to import.

Fireworks is in the same boat, if the UK release used the home video version instead of the theatrical version, yet another one to import.

Liz and Fireworks are ports of the US disc.

[BigOnAnime]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

Cardcaptor Sakura uses the new 4K remaster. The Japanese 5.1 track is however borked on the final 3 episodes (surround channels are delayed by less than 1ms), but it's perhaps only noticeable if you downmix to stereo.

Remind me, did they reuse the NISA subs that were inferior to the Pioneer (Geneon) DVD subs? Those had the annoying issue of having the name subs not match what's in the audio (How does this still happen? Do not default to first names, you must match what's in the audio.), which was quite the problem given it becomes a significant part of the show later on.

[CWCprime]

Huh, I thought I read where that Paragus line about Broly was fixed in the UK BD...

[NLScavenger]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

Remind me, did they reuse the NISA subs that were inferior to the Pioneer (Geneon) DVD subs? Those had the annoying issue of having the name subs not match what's in the audio (How does this still happen? Do not default to first names, you must match what's in the audio.), which was quite the problem given it becomes a significant part of the show later on.

They used the Pioneer subs.

[TThomas]

Originally Posted by CrashOveride95

It did not, it is a clone of the US BD

Originally Posted by MOONPHASE

I think the UK version of Tenchi Muyo OVA came with the Mihoshi Special whereas the U.S. one definitely did not include it.

You are both right & wrong at the same time
The UK Blu-rays are clones of the US Blu-rays, however the UK CE was a DVD+BD-Combo pack including a DVD of the Mihoshi Special.

[SteamfloggerBoss]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

They used the Pioneer subs.

This was the biggest reason I went with the UK release. I just finished watching it yesterday, delightful series.

[kk1]

Originally Posted by TThomas

You are both right & wrong at the same time
The UK Blu-rays are clones of the US Blu-rays, however the UK CE was a DVD+BD-Combo pack including a DVD of the Mihoshi Special.

Same with the UK CE of Magic Knights Rayearth, it included the OVA (I think on DVD or it was the DVD encode)

[kk1]

Originally Posted by Glorian

I'm wondering about titles where the actual discs of a UK/AUS BD are better than the US release of the same title? Things like video quality, subtitle quality, or extra episodes/footage. Basically, cases where it would make sense to replace the US release.

Some examples I know of:

Video quality:

Outlaw Star UK
Penguindrum UK
Tower of God season 1 UK
In/Spectre season 1 UK
Inu Yasha TV UK
Jujutsu Kaisen season 1 UK

Take note of the US company that released most of those

[Mangaranga]

Tiger & Bunny The Beginning and Tiger & Bunny The Rising are both MediaOCD encodes.
The UK BD of The Rising is potentially the best release overall as ironically enough, the Japanese BD has defective 5.1 JP audio, whilst the US BD has defective 5.1 EN audio.

[kk1]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

Vision of Escaflowne TV UK BD has better encodes, though there is a tiny drop out on the Japanese track in one episode.


.

Also the movie for VOE that came with the CE was done by Justin but the seperate version (the only one available now) is the same as the US, unfortunately. Weird they didn't release it seperately after going to the trouble to have it redone.