Ghost in the Shell 攻殻機動隊 (Koukaku Kidoutai/Mobile Armored Riot Police)
(Lionsgate, USA)
2160p
1.85:1 Aspect Ratio
HEVC/H.265 ~60 mbps
Japanese LPCM 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
Japanese Dolby Atmos (48kHz, 24-bit)
English Dolby Atmos (48kHz, 24-bit)
BD-100
To cut to the chase, yes, this is the exact same master as the Japanese 4K UHD release. I mean, this was obvious.
Yes, there has been DNR applied here, but unlike other 4K UHD releases of anime classics where the noise reduction was applied on essentially everything, producing a smeary mess *cough
Akiracough*, GitS has avoided such a fate. In fact, there is a bit of film grain in the image, and in shots which have been nearly untouched it is breathtaking. In fact, the rendering of the grain that
is here is rather good. It is just that the DNR is selective, essentially being applied to areas where you can "get away with it," while grain is left intact where it is absolutely needed to preserve detail. I like this approach more than the "smear the f**k out of everything" approach taken by Akira.
Comparisons to Space Adventure Cobra are warranted here, as Cobra, while degrained to the point where I couldn't see any at all, is still an upgrade over its BD due to the techniques used. Cobra was restored by the Tokyo Labratory, rather than Q-Tec. It is worth nothing that Q-Tec doesn't have one approach to everything, as it varies based on clients needs, so while their restoration of Akira is a smear-fest, Ghost in the Shell is a decent effort, and Cardcaptor Sakura, while 100% degrained, is their best work, as it has zero loss in detail whatsoever, being a massive upgrade over its old BD (I'm talking about the TV series here, which is only on 1080p BD because a 4K release of a 70 episode shoujo series would be crazy). So there is massive variability in their output.
Detail is rather good, and I personally don't see any loss in detail over the 1080p Blu-rays, even in the more blurry areas of their DNR application. In fact, there is a decent upgrade to detail here over said BDs. I know this sounds crazy, like, "minimal detail upgrade? Bruh, this is a 4K UHD, there should be a huge upgrade," but with these Japanese 4K releases, this is what it is. A good number of Japanese consumers don't care about film grain, and will post negative user reviews on grainy anime releases, so this trend of DNR heavy UHDs is just to appeal to their domestic customers.
The HDR implementation is subtle and effective. I can only display HDR10, so I can't talk about Dolby Vision, but it looks pretty good to me. Highlights are strong and well defined, while darker regions have a similar brightness level to existing BDs. Though, there are weird exceptions, like
this shot here, where there's clearly something going on with the highlights and their HDR implementation.
Video compression is rather good, as expected of a Lionsgate release (that they produced the disc for, Studio Canal licenses don't count). The bitrate hovers around the 60 mbps region with little variance, only topping around 85 mbps in select instances, though mostly in the 60-70 region. That's not a problem at all, as the compression has been carried out very well, with no encoding issues to report. This is free of macroblocking and banding, providing a nice image. It's just that, being on a BD-100, you'd expect a higher bitrate, and that isn't here. Hell, the Japanese UHD averaged 90(!) mbps on a BD-66, so clearly there was space that could've been utilized better.
There are brand new Dolby Atmos mixes, but I din't listen to them, really, as I don't have a surround sound setup, and they aren't the original mixes for the film. Instead, I highly suggest watching with the Japanese LPCM 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit) track, which replicates the theatrical Dolby Stereo audio mix perfectly. While I'm not major audiophile like the good Captain Solo who goes on damn fool idealistic crusades, I didn't hear anything that sounded like side-effects of severe noise reduction. It may be there, but I didn't catch any.
The English dub infamously had quite a lot of mixing errors on the previous release, and from the brief bit I did sample of it, the ones I did look for were fixed. For example, when Batou chases the hacker around the 20 minute mark and he gets away, Batou exclaims, "shit," which was previously removed on the BD for some reason. It's here. In that same scene, when he shoots the watermelons, the third shot was missing, and here it's been restored. Now, I don't have the time or desire to check every error, but know that at least those two have been fixed, so I'm willing to bet more have as well.
The subtitle translation is based on that of the 1998 DVD release, but has been cleaned up a bit and is an improvement... but it's not perfect. As someone who has revised subs before, there are lines here I wouldn't be allowed on a final release. The issue here is simple- Ghost in the Shell is a b*tch to translate. Japanese is a very dense language, where people speak fast and words take up less characters and time in speaking to convey than most Latin based languages can do in the same length. So, to make subtitles for most people, you have two options- change and remove stuff to make them flow at a speed where most people can read them, or have them filled to the brim with text at a very fast speed so as to not lose anything. I personally prefer the latter, and people subtitling Hong Kong action films do as well. However, you'd have to have good reading skill to do it that fast, so I can sympathize with the translators here, so while I do have criticisms with the current translation, know it has a very solid base, but there is a lot of diction I would change, personally.
Lastly, the actual authoring of the disc deserves praise. When you boot up the disc, it defaults to the English dub in Atmos. I suggest switching it to Japanese LPCM 2.0 in the audio section, and to English (or Spanish, if that is your native language) in the subtitle options. However, if, during the middle of the film you switch languages, not only does the audio change, but the subtitles do. What was once a translation of the Japanese dialogue can now be dubtitles (a transcript of the English dub), and this happens automatically when you swap audio languages in the menu without changing subs manually, because it does it automatically. This is cool, as people who prefer the English dub but can't hear well can get subtitles for the dub specifically. All anime releases should do this from now on. Way to go, Lionsgate! Please let this become the industry standard.
The extras are great, with the retrospective feature featuring some faces I'm sure many will be familiar with both as fans within the industry, and the people made the dub. It's a fun extra. I've yet to listen to the new commentary, but it seems promising.
Overall, at the price, it's one hell of a deal. The film should look better, but given the Japanese market favoring DNR, that isn't happening anytime soon. There are good audio and subtitle options, and the artwork is rather nice on the standard edition. Manga Entertainment should be releasing this on UHD in the UK soon, so if you don't feel like importing, don't feel left out- a European option is coming soon.
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Linear Mode
