Animé on Blu-ray

[FF750]

Hello everyone! I've been lurking here a while ever since I got hooked on Blu-ray c/o my PS3 but finally decided to post (after Blackhawk down and Kung Fu Hustle no more DVD for me unless it's the only choice )

I was just wondering what news there was about anime on BD. I'm a huge anime fan and would love to see it on BD even if initally it's just the lushly animated stuff like the Ghibli films, Macross Plus, Karas, Appleseed, ROD, Place Promised and so on.

I did a search here and know about Bandai's recent HD-DVD news but what about BD?

I also know anime distributors don't have the volume or capital to take sides yet but would like to know if there's been any developments given the recent indications that Blu-ray is building momentum.

[Josh]

There is some titles out in Japan. If you check out my page for importing titles, you will see the titles, their specs, and a link to a review (by Chris from animeonblu-ray.com). Hopefully that will help.

http://joshd2012.googlepages.com/regionaimports

[Chris Beveridge]

As mentioned, only a few titles are available in Japan. Right now announcements are coming slowly and no new anime titles have been announced.

US releases aren't on the radar yet for either format from what I've been able to get out of the various studios.

[dialog_gvf]

Chris, perhaps you should post a poll here to gauge the interest in anime among the membership?

Gary

[Josh]

Metropolis was supposed to be out by now in UK, but it looks like most if not all of those 2006 titles have been delayed.

[DaveFi]

Of course there is demand, and I'm not quite sure what the poll will show? We've had a few threads already asking for anime, one of which I started.

The problem now is that I'd like to buy some of the newer series coming out which I know are being mastered in HD but not sure if I should buy them on DVD or wait for them on BD. How long will it take for the two main companies: ADV and Geneon to start releasing series and movies here in the US?

[FF750]

Originally Posted by joshd2012

There is some titles out in Japan. If you check out my page for importing titles, you will see the titles, their specs, and a link to a review (by Chris from animeonblu-ray.com). Hopefully that will help.

http://joshd2012.googlepages.com/regionaimports

Thanks for that link. I was intrigued after reading about those Japanese BD releases in other posts but do they have English subtitles? I checked out the review for Brave Story and I gather it's only in Japanese right? I've been working on learning Nihongo but sadly it's far from enough to do without subs.

I really wish we'd start seeing US BD anime. Like some of you have mentioned it'd be nice to at least get the newer releases in HD. Glad to see I'm not the only one looking forward to it.

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by DaveFi

Of course there is demand, and I'm not quite sure what the poll will show?

It might show a lurking importer that a market exists.

Gary

[Chris Beveridge]

There's demand but not enough.

From the numbers I've seen, both formats with top selling titles like Serenity are *still* selling at basically "C" level anime titles. Both formats have enough of a cost to get into it that at this time it's simply not worth it for US companies other than to get the trivia fact of being first. The anime home video industry is trying to come out of one of its worst slumps in the last fifteen years so there isn't a rush to do it.

I expect to see things sooner from Japan and from Sony or Disney via movie form before TV series. Japan will lead the charge but just like DVD, LD and VHS there will be few and far between releases with subtitles.

[Pai Pai Master]

I really can't wait for Metropolis, but it's unfortunate that a date hasn't been set for a US release.

If anything, I'd just like to see Disney release Howl's Moving Castle and Spirited Away some time this year.

[kilofox]

Do you guys think Anime would look much better on Blu-ray? If so, maybe they can do some Blu-ray for Clutch Cargo? (I am dating myself here) Anime looks no different than my pal Clutch IMO.

To me Anime lacks the visual detail that makes Blu-ray compeling to begin with.

[u_nick]

I'm all for it.

At first I was just thinking new shows, but after seeing the DBZ tech trailer, I see what they can improve even with old shows, and it has me excited. Heck, I hate DBZ but still want to buy a couple discs, it looked so good.

I also have been holding off on a few new titles (i.e. Ergo Proxy, Paradise Kiss), in hopes that they would eventually see Bluray releases. I also have one more volume of Kamichu to buuy, and it hit me: This show also aired in HD on Japanese TV. Its beautiful animation would benefit perfectly from a Bluray release.

From poking around on other boards, anime boards specifcally, it seems like most reps from distributors are waiting for a clear cut winner to the war, to simply choose which format to go with.

It wouldnt hurt to email the producers of the shows as well. Funimation is very responsive on message boards.

I also emailed Disney a couple weeks ago and said "PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE release Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle on Bluray". I already new Disney was a BR company, so I figured what can it hurt. I got a very nice reply back that said that those titles werent in the plans yet, but they would forward the suggestion on to their marketing department. So I would assume if these marketing departments got enough emails, they would realzie the demand.

Now of course, I think about all the titles I would like to see, and think about which titles I would rebuy in BR, and which titles I wouldnt.

[Deciazulado]

Sorry if I may sound harsh but where do people get this idea that images transferred onto a medium that has up to 8.4 times the resolution won't look any better than when transfered to a medium than has 8 times less the resolution? Maybe it's from the same place where they get the idea that any movie not made in this century will not look good on High Definition, or that animation is a different kind of photographic image than other kinds of photographic images. Who told people this? who taught people to think this way? Have you ever compared film directly to DVD? Buddies, 35mm has been high resolution for a hundred years. Video has just caught to it. If the program you want to watch was made on film, and the film element is not deteriorated (color faded, physical support damaged) it'll look good. Better than DVD TV. Of course if the people transferring them don't use the proper elements or simply don't know how to extract a proper image from film that's a different matter, but just automatically believing these myths that apparently stem from owning DVDs (seems like some kind of unconscious prejudice against anything better than their already owned beloved DVDs) that most things won't be worth having on High Definition video because "surely they can't look much better than they do now" has no reason to be. Anything looks good seen at a small magnification, even newspaper photos with little resolution.
Try to project a DVD on a 150" screen a see what you get. With a Blu-ray you'll get a up to 8 times better image.

To answer the particular question: if the animé was mastered on NTSC video, no it won't look much better tho there may be some improvement specially in color resolution if the upscaling to 1080 is done with the most advanced processing. If the animé was done in 35mm (or even in 16mm) and they transfer optimally from the original negatives of course it'll look better. The degree will depend on the quality of the original photography.

Hey I just saw several My Little Pony animated specials on a theater movie screen in 1080p video and they looked great, specially the richness of the colors.

[Chris Beveridge]

In addition to what Deci says above, the other thing to consider is just bandwidth. Many DVD releases average around 4-5 or sometimes 6 episodes per dual layered disc. They're really working to keep bitrates low and make things look good. While these may look good on smaller sets, the larger the set the more glaring the compression. Doing just 4-5 episode per blu-ray disc will eliminate a lot of the problems that people do see with anime on DVD these days. Not everything will have the wow factor of Brave Story or GitS 2 but they will have much better overall quality.

[Polyh3dron]

Originally Posted by Deciazulado

Sorry if I may sound harsh but where do people get this idea that images transferred onto a medium that has up to 8.4 times the resolution won't look any better than when transfered to a medium than has 8 times less the resolution? Maybe it's from the same place where they get the idea that any movie not made in this century will not look good on High Definition, or that animation is a different kind of photographic image than other kinds of photographic images. Who told people this? who taught people to think this way? Have you ever compared film directly to DVD? Buddies, 35mm has been high resolution for a hundred years. Video has just caught to it. If the program you want to watch was made on film, and the film element is not deteriorated (color faded, physical support damaged) it'll look good. Better than DVD TV. Of course if the people transferring them don't use the proper elements or simply don't know how to extract a proper image from film that's a different matter, but just automatically believing these myths that apparently stem from owning DVDs (seems like some kind of unconscious prejudice against anything better than their already owned beloved DVDs) that most things won't be worth having on High Definition video because "surely they can't look much better than they do now" has no reason to be. Anything looks good seen at a small magnification, even newspaper photos with little resolution.
Try to project a DVD on a 150" screen a see what you get. With a Blu-ray you'll get a up to 8 times better image.

To answer the particular question: if the animé was mastered on NTSC video, no it won't look much better tho there may be some improvement specially in color resolution if the upscaling to 1080 is done with the most advanced processing. If the animé was done in 35mm (or even in 16mm) and they transfer optimally from the original negatives of course it'll look better. The degree will depend on the quality of the original photography.

Hey I just saw several My Little Pony animated specials on a theater movie screen in 1080p video and they looked great, specially the richness of the colors.

Studio Ghibli films are DEFINITELY not mastered in NTSC.. All anime features are on film, because that's how they show them in the theaters. Now, anime TV shows that are kind of old like Neon Genesis Evangelion are a different matter. But I'm sure there are some HD masters for newer shows like Full Metal Alchemist.

[demetrios]

to see akira, my cowboy bebop, vampire hunter d blood lust and many other's .. on blu-ray .. i can't wait.

[Blackraven]

Originally Posted by Polyh3dron

Studio Ghibli films are DEFINITELY not mastered in NTSC.. All anime features are on film, because that's how they show them in the theaters. Now, anime TV shows that are kind of old like Neon Genesis Evangelion are a different matter. But I'm sure there are some HD masters for newer shows like Full Metal Alchemist.

FATE STAY NIGHT

I got the DVD from amazon.com last month and I checked the display details using the remote of my Pioneer region-free DVD player. It mentioned a transfer rate of around 5.2 mbps to 9.7 mbps.

At that rate, the fact that a Blu-ray version alone triples-quadruples the transfer rate than that of a DVD version, then I can only expect better.

That's why I'm hoping that Geneon would sign up with Blu-ray.

Also, you can expect that Anime releases from Sony (ie. Blood+, Final Fantasy Advent Children, Cowboy Bebop, etc.) WILL be on Blu-ray obviously.

[Xboxbydegrees]

I would like to see anime on blu-ray even if it was just the main stream titles to begin with.

[FF750]

Originally Posted by Deciazulado

Sorry if I may sound harsh but where do people get this idea that images transferred onto a medium that has up to 8.4 times the resolution won't look any better than when transfered to a medium than has 8 times less the resolution? Maybe it's from the same place where they get the idea that any movie not made in this century will not look good on High Definition, or that animation is a different kind of photographic image than other kinds of photographic images. Who told people this? who taught people to think this way? Have you ever compared film directly to DVD? Buddies, 35mm has been high resolution for a hundred years. Video has just caught to it. If the program you want to watch was made on film, and the film element is not deteriorated (color faded, physical support damaged) it'll look good. Better than DVD TV. Of course if the people transferring them don't use the proper elements or simply don't know how to extract a proper image from film that's a different matter, but just automatically believing these myths that apparently stem from owning DVDs (seems like some kind of unconscious prejudice against anything better than their already owned beloved DVDs) that most things won't be worth having on High Definition video because "surely they can't look much better than they do now" has no reason to be. Anything looks good seen at a small magnification, even newspaper photos with little resolution.
Try to project a DVD on a 150" screen a see what you get. With a Blu-ray you'll get a up to 8 times better image.

To answer the particular question: if the animé was mastered on NTSC video, no it won't look much better tho there may be some improvement specially in color resolution if the upscaling to 1080 is done with the most advanced processing. If the animé was done in 35mm (or even in 16mm) and they transfer optimally from the original negatives of course it'll look better. The degree will depend on the quality of the original photography.

Hey I just saw several My Little Pony animated specials on a theater movie screen in 1080p video and they looked great, specially the richness of the colors.

Those are some really good points. I guess we've gotten so used to the idea that digital is better now that everything's electronic that it's easy to forget that analog can actually be better in certain areas. Veteran photography enthusiasts would relate very well to this - as good as all the latest 10MP and up digitals are, for absolute quality they still can't beat film.

[blitz6speed]

I want:

Final Fantasy - Advent Children
Blood - The Last Vampire (or was it lost?)
Akira
Ninja Scroll

All in full 1080p BD50s with Lossless 7.1 sound and 40+ bitrate MPEG2 with original language + subtitles and DD5.1 dubbed. KthxBye.