Royal Space Force: Wings of Honneamise - Releases

[Dubstar]

Originally Posted by Frode

It's not for everyone. Personally I'm not a fan of the movie, and found it boring. I know other people who think the same way, so I'm not exactly an isolated incident. That said, it fits more in the 'film' category than the 'movie' one, so if you're a film fan and like your moving pictures with more than just popcorn on the side, it may just be for you. People who like the movie, like it a lot, while those who don't tend to just forget most of it. With the price BV is charging for it, I'd say it's worth a rental at the very least. That way if you like it, you can always buy it later.

to me it feels like an animated movie if Yasujirō Ozu had made an animated movie, it's more about the characters and the human interactions, the animation is beautiful and it's definitely in my top ten favourite Japanese animated movies. I think you could maybe compare it to Makoto Shinkai's movies, but minus the over-emoting, which just makes my eyes roll, 'Weathering With You's ending made me cringe.

[professorwho]

I'd be lying if I said I didn't like Weathering With You, but it's absolutely no masterpiece (certainly a significant improvement over Kimi no na wa in pretty much every area, and literally every other Shinkai film, as WWY was his first good one, IMO), but Wings of Honnêamise fits the definition of masterpiece very well. It is a great encapsulation of the 80s bubble economy of Japan in a sense, with all the hope, optimism, money and talent poured into it to ultimately not succeed financially, but leave a legacy for its creators and Gainax as a whole.

I've used the comparison to The Right Stuff before in how the subject matter is similar, but I actually think the best comparison in film as a whole is Miyazaki's The Wind Rises, due to the sense of creativity within people that they use to create beautiful, yet potentially dangerous machines, while battling personal dilemmas that effect their output and motivations. I think that the two films when viewed together would make for an interesting analysis in comparing and contrasting how they take a similar concept and achieve similar means through completely different execution (and how Hideaki Anno has a major role in each film, either as a key animator, or voice actor).

[The Collector FX]

Royal Space Force: Wings of Honnêamise was also the first japanese animated feature film to get an HD release on HD DVD. (technically the Animatrix was the first japanese animated work to get the HD treatment, but I don't qualify it as a feature film, as it's more of a compilation OVA feature and never got a technical theatrical release)

[BigOnAnime]

Though in the end HD DVD got very little for anime, from what I've been able to find out.

5 Centimeters per Second (Japan-only)
Afro Samurai: The Movie (Japan-only)
Appleseed Ex Machina
Brave Story (Japan-only)
Freedom Volume 1
Freedom Volume 2
Freedom Volume 3
Freedom Volume 4
Freedom Volume 5
Freedom Volume 6
Patlabor: The Movie (Japan-only)
Patlabor 2: The Movie (Japan-only)
Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise
Vexille (Japan-only)

https://myanimelist.net/blog.php?eid=835521

Big thanks to WTK for helping me get down a few I missed.
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/bbs....php?t=3156773

[The Collector FX]

The HD DVD/Blu Ray format war would have been a lot different had Microsoft included the drives in their consoles. While the proprietary Cell Processor for the PS3 was a cataclysmic failure in regards to what Sony had hopes it would achieve (it was even supposed to have real world medical applications), the inclusion of a blu ray drive in the PS3 is what won the format war.

[SpaceDandy]

Originally Posted by professorwho

Now, all the JP and NA BDs are windowboxed, while the UK/FR releases (the same disc) aren't because they cropped the image to fill more of the screen (a bad idea, IMO). So, how does the LD compare?

They are all windowboxed; the FR/UK release just has the wrong brightness.

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by SpaceDandy

They are all windowboxed; the FR/UK release just has the wrong brightness.

Wow. That's even worse. (I could've sworn it was cropped... perhaps it was another windowboxed title...)

[svenge]

Originally Posted by The Collector FX

The HD DVD/Blu Ray format war would have been a lot different had Microsoft included the drives in their consoles.

There's quite a few problems with that scenario, though:

1) The 360 launched in November 2005, while stand-alone HD-DVD players (not to mention actual playback media) wouldn't hit the market until April 2006.

2) The MSRP for even the bare-bones "Core System" (SD composite video only out-of-the-box, wired controller, and no HDD and thus no XBox Live) was $300 at launch. Even if one were to retroactively apply the $200 MSRP of the HD-DVD player add-on that came out in November 2006 that would have led to a $500 base configuration that would have still been inferior to the lowest-end PS3 launch SKU (i.e. the $500 "CECHBx" model w/ 20GB HDD) as the latter was not nearly as "nerfed" as the X360 Core System.

3) Even if one were to put aside the timeline and cost issues, neither Toshiba (the leader of the HD-DVD promotion group) nor Microsoft had the sufficient amount of "motivation" to take a massive financial risk in bundling HD-DVD playback functionality in the baseline X360 configuration. Neither had any ownership stakes in movie studios (versus Sony's ownership of Columbia Pictures) nor would failing to make HD-DVD a success cause significant damage to their respective wider companies as a whole due to their broader product mix (e.g. Microsoft's software and Toshiba's myriad other business lines). In comparison, Sony was and still is largely a company driven by consumer electronics and the TV/movie/music business.

4) Speaking of the HD-DVD Promotional Group, its lineup of allied businesses was objectively weaker than the Blu-ray Disc Association in terms of consumer electronics chops. Toshiba, Microsoft, NEC, Sanyo, and Hitachi (HDPG) vs. Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, LG, and Samsung (BDA) really wasn't a fair fight.

In hindsight, I simply don't see how HD-DVD could've won the format war by any means other than throwing an unlimited amount of money both at all five major non-Sony movie studios (especially Disney) for exclusivity agreements and at subsidizing sub-cost pricing levels for a X360 console lineup with integrated HD-DVD capabilities. And that's not even taking into account the capacity issues that HD-DVD had (i.e. 15GB/layer vs. 25GB/layer for BD).

Of course I didn't have any "skin in the game" at the time (as I didn't get a BD player until late 2009 nor a PS3 until 2013 after the "Super Slim" revision came out) so it's easier to be objective now than say the "format warriors" who were prevalent on AVS Forum back then. That said, I do distinctly remember my thoughts in 2006-08 being more or less in line with what I just typed (but obviously with far less detailed knowledge of the companies behind the situation).

[Dubstar]

Originally Posted by professorwho

I'd be lying if I said I didn't like Weathering With You, but it's absolutely no masterpiece (certainly a significant improvement over Kimi no na wa in pretty much every area, and literally every other Shinkai film, as WWY was his first good one, IMO), but Wings of Honnêamise fits the definition of masterpiece very well. It is a great encapsulation of the 80s bubble economy of Japan in a sense, with all the hope, optimism, money and talent poured into it to ultimately not succeed financially, but leave a legacy for its creators and Gainax as a whole.

I've used the comparison to The Right Stuff before in how the subject matter is similar, but I actually think the best comparison in film as a whole is Miyazaki's The Wind Rises, due to the sense of creativity within people that they use to create beautiful, yet potentially dangerous machines, while battling personal dilemmas that effect their output and motivations. I think that the two films when viewed together would make for an interesting analysis in comparing and contrasting how they take a similar concept and achieve similar means through completely different execution (and how Hideaki Anno has a major role in each film, either as a key animator, or voice actor).

I know this is totally going off topic but I had serious problems with the ending of WWY and Demon Slayer -

[Show spoiler] the over the top 'crying' / emotions sunk both movies to me - sure it's sad and all, but oh my god, bring it a down a notch, say by 90 percent 'jeez Louise'

getting back on subject though, I think the movie helps tremendously with Ryuichi Sakamoto's out of this world (pun intended) music score - I bought the CD box set after seeing the movie - it's grand scale orchestration really gave it a sense of wonder and epicness to reach, and travel out to the stars.

[The Collector FX]

Originally Posted by svenge

There's quite a few problems with that scenario, though:

[Show spoiler]1) The 360 launched in November 2005, while stand-alone HD-DVD players (not to mention actual playback media) wouldn't hit the market until April 2006.

2) The MSRP for even the bare-bones "Core System" (SD composite video only out-of-the-box, wired controller, and no HDD and thus no XBox Live) was $300 at launch. Even if one were to retroactively apply the $200 MSRP of the HD-DVD player add-on that came out in November 2006 that would have led to a $500 base configuration that would have still been inferior to the lowest-end PS3 launch SKU (i.e. the $500 "CECHBx" model w/ 20GB HDD) as the latter was not nearly as "nerfed" as the X360 Core System.

3) Even if one were to put aside the timeline and cost issues, neither Toshiba (the leader of the HD-DVD promotion group) nor Microsoft had the sufficient amount of "motivation" to take a massive financial risk in bundling HD-DVD playback functionality in the baseline X360 configuration. Neither had any ownership stakes in movie studios (versus Sony's ownership of Columbia Pictures) nor would failing to make HD-DVD a success cause significant damage to their respective wider companies as a whole due to their broader product mix (e.g. Microsoft's software and Toshiba's myriad other business lines). In comparison, Sony was and still is largely a company driven by consumer electronics and the TV/movie/music business.

4) Speaking of the HD-DVD Promotional Group, its lineup of allied businesses was objectively weaker than the Blu-ray Disc Association in terms of consumer electronics chops. Toshiba, Microsoft, NEC, Sanyo, and Hitachi (HDPG) vs. Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, LG, and Samsung (BDA) really wasn't a fair fight.

In hindsight, I simply don't see how HD-DVD could've won the format war by any means other than throwing an unlimited amount of money both at all five major non-Sony movie studios (especially Disney) for exclusivity agreements and at subsidizing sub-cost pricing levels for a X360 console lineup with integrated HD-DVD capabilities. And that's not even taking into account the capacity issues that HD-DVD had (i.e. 15GB/layer vs. 25GB/layer for BD).

Of course I didn't have any "skin in the game" at the time (as I didn't get a BD player until late 2009 nor a PS3 until 2013 after the "Super Slim" revision came out) so it's easier to be objective now than say the "format warriors" who were prevalent on AVS Forum back then. That said, I do distinctly remember my thoughts in 2006-08 being more or less in line with what I just typed (but obviously with far less detailed knowledge of the companies behind the situation).

This was very informative.

I didn't get my first HD TV until 2008, but I got my PS3 at launch. I remember being in my local Target in 2005 and seeing a line-up of their LCD HDTV's. I can't remember the exact screen size but I think it was 32" - and it was $2,800 lol.

Even though it was an off-brand P.O.S. - I remember firing up Bioshock via 720p/component cables for the first time on my HDTV and being blown away. What a difference.

Too bad I didn't have that same reaction going from PS3 to PS4, and even less so PS4 to PS5.....

[LexInHD]

Fun fact: I have an unopened last-gen Xbox 360 and an unopened HD-DVD (with Peter Jackson's King Kong) add-on, in my collection.

[Naiera]

I have the 360 HD DVD drive and it has never been used with either of the 360s I’ve owned

I think the only thing I’ve used it for is to make a Blu-ray of my Accepted HD DVD.

[AnimeCollectorSoap]

Man, the original bandai release was still going for a pretty reasonable price last year (under $50), kinda wish I would have bought it then. There is no way I'm paying +$120 when I got the 2019 release for like $11.

[GeoffOliver]

So is this OOP already after two years?

[BigOnAnime]

Yep, the 2019 re-release is already OOP. Maiden Japan continues to have weird stocking issues. Anything you want from them, I'd grab it sooner rather than later.

[Kriztoffer Swank]

So what are some Maiden Japan must-haves? I'm really only familiar with their Patlabor releases, all of which I own. (Save for the movies of 1 and 2, as I opted to get the Japanese BDs instead—though I don't remember why.) Never saw a need to replace the Bandai Wings of Honneamise set.

[NLScavenger]

Space Runaway Ideon, but good luck finding one for a reasonable price. They only did a single print run.

[BoopityBoop]

I'd recommend the Votoms re-release. While they might put out a new release using the new HD masters, it could easily go OOP like other Maiden Japan titles and is a great value for the price (especially on sale).

[gloomranger]

Originally Posted by Kriztoffer Swank

So what are some Maiden Japan must-haves?

Den-noh Coil is a must have and is currently still available for purchase at TRSI.

[GeoffOliver]

Originally Posted by Kriztoffer Swank

So what are some Maiden Japan must-haves? I'm really only familiar with their Patlabor releases, all of which I own. (Save for the movies of 1 and 2, as I opted to get the Japanese BDs instead—though I don't remember why.) Never saw a need to replace the Bandai Wings of Honneamise set.

All the Patlabor stuff. It’s an important franchise that’s a must-own if you’re into classic anime.