AnimEigo - Megazone 23 OVA

[zenpai]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...token=31a1a1a2

Wow, after taking a look at the mere rough draft of the Megazone 23 KS, I can say with certainty that I will be backing a Premium $90 set. I also went through all of Robert’s other campaigns (I never backed any) and will definitely be looking to buy what they released originally through KS on the AimEigo webstore. The effort they put into their licensing and releases is astonishing; they really try to get as much as they can for the fans! Simply inspirational!

[Sylontack]

Originally Posted by zenpai

Wow, after taking a look at the mere rough draft of the Megazone 23 KS, I can say with certainty that I will be backing a Premium $90 set.

I'm in on the $90 right away as well, the $30 international shipping on top of it is a bit of an "oof" but not particularly outrageous.

[NLScavenger]

I think I'll go for the basic set for now, but you can always upgrade your pledge at a later moment.

I suggested the inclusion of the original theatrical mono track of Part One and the home video version of Part One as a bonus. The BD version is based on the theatrical version (23 March 1985), which has a few animation improvements over the home video version that was released a few weeks earlier (5 March 1985):

メガゾーン23 ビデオ版ã�¨åŠ‡å*´ç‰ˆã�®é�•ã�„ - YouTube

[starsteam]

Gonna be a $90 tier for me, and maybe some of the add-on items for fun. Was hoping the campaign would start sooner, but it looks like they still have a few ties to work out.

I'm guessing they can't get the alternative ending made for the Robotech movie version.

[Dailyan]

Originally Posted by starsteam

I'm guessing they can't get the alternative ending made for the Robotech movie version.

The "Robotech" ending was the original ending for Part 1 and HG decided to use it for "Robotech".

[Zen_Amako]

Originally Posted by Dailyan

The "Robotech" ending was the original ending for Part 1 and HG decided to use it for "Robotech".

Actually, it was animation commissioned for Robotech the Movie by HG because Part 1 had an abrupt, non-Hollywood ending (it was originally planned as a TV series). The animation looks a bit different from Part 1 and the Bioroids from the Southern Cross series make an appearance. I also noticed that they removed the kanji from Shogo's headband.

[Zen_Amako]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

I think I'll go for the basic set for now, but you can always upgrade your pledge at a later moment.

I suggested the inclusion of the original theatrical mono track of Part One and the home video version of Part One as a bonus. The BD version is based on the theatrical version (23 March 1985), which has a few animation improvements over the home video version that was released a few weeks earlier (5 March 1985):

That’s interesting - I was always under the impression that the animation improvements were made for the DVD release, but it makes sense that they were the theatrical versions (the sex scene in Part II is also longer in the theatrical version - I remember being surprised when I saw that scene in the film comic because I’d only ever seen the home video version). I used to have the LDs and they were the home video versions.

I really prefer the way the cut of Eve singing “Senakagoshi ni sentimental” looked before the “improvements.”

[starsteam]

Originally Posted by Zen_Amako

Actually, it was animation commissioned for Robotech the Movie by HG because Part 1 had an abrupt, non-Hollywood ending (it was originally planned as a TV series). The animation looks a bit different from Part 1 and the Bioroids from the Southern Cross series make an appearance. I also noticed that they removed the kanji from Shogo's headband.

That's what I had read. Wikipedia says a laserdisc release for Megazone included the newly made ending as a extra, which is why I questioned whether or not they could include it on this release. It doesn't really seem like Harmony Gold still owns the footage.

[Zen_Amako]

Originally Posted by starsteam

That's what I had read. Wikipedia says a laserdisc release for Megazone included the newly made ending as a extra, which is why I questioned whether or not they could include it on this release. It doesn't really seem like Harmony Gold still owns the footage.

The Megazone 23 Part II International Edition (the old English dubbed version of Part II) has the Robotech the Movie footage at the beginning as a “Present for You.” At least in Japan. It was included in the Japanese Blu-ray set on the extras disc.

[NLScavenger]

This has nothing to do with the KS, but Justin Sevakis got his hands on a 16mm copy of Part Two and posted an unboxing video. It looks to be in very good condition.

[Dailyan]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

This has nothing to do with the KS, but Justin Sevakis got his hands on a 16mm copy of Part Two and posted an unboxing video. It looks to be in very good condition.

Neat. It'd be kind of cool if it was a bonus on the Blu set as a "warts and all" presentation.

[professorwho]

If you want to see a “warts and all” anime presentation, the Japanese BDs of Urusei Yatsura are the best choice. Pretty much zero tinkering was done to it- just a 2K scan of the 16mm prints and it’s gorgeous. It’s hella grainy, to the point where some shots may have too much in the eyes of some, but I like it. The only downside is that there were 12 episodes per disc on the JP BDs, as Warner Bros understandably wanted to cut down the number of discs (I mean, it is 194 episodes, so doing just 6 per discs would be overkill).

[NLScavenger]

The average Tatsunoko HD transfer is more "warts and all" than UY.

[jd213]

Always cool to see film prints of anime. I wonder if there's any fans with prints of anime unreleased to BD, there's already fans sharing scans of stuff like the original Star Wars trilogy.

[El_Fez]

Looks like the kickstarter goes live next week on the 17th!

https://www.animeigo.com/mz23?fbclid...Jvziv83e711rug

Plus some details:

The original Japanese release was on 4 BD25. We are planning on 2 BD50 so we have the same number of bits to work with. It's on my to-do list to see if I can combine MZ23 II and the international edition to save some bits, but it may be more difficult than you think, because there are almost certainly differences at the reel-change points and if the dub audio crosses those points, conforming them may not be possible.

Bit of history for you here: these films were produced on film, and film comes in reels of ~18 minutes or so. At the point where the reels change, there's a moment where the audio goes to nothing, and the image is usually either a fade down (on one reel) and fade up (on the other), or a jump cut, usually to a difference scene.

When shown in the theater back in the day, there's actually two projectors, and the projectionist gets the second one running in sync with the first (the dots you sometimes see for a frame in the top-right corner of an old film help them do this), and then cuts between them at the right moment - and this is why live audio doesn't cross reel boundaries, because the crossover is done manually, so the timing is never exact.

More recently, films would be delivered to the theater in reels and then edited together onto a big platter, but the problem of audio at the splice points remains, it's just that the edit is fixed for that particular showing. When the film's run was done, it was cut back into individual reels again!

When a film is transferred to video, the individual reels are telecine'd, and then edited together. Since the audio doesn't cross reel boundaries, it's a simple edit. However, two different transfers might have different edit points. Usually they are only off by a frame or two, but sometimes it can be more - there's one in MZ23 I that's 73 frames different (!!) between the DVD telecine and the Blu-ray telecine.

This wouldn't be a big deal as long as no audio ever crosses these reel boundaries. Unfortunately, when dubbing for video release, being silent over a reel change isn't a consideration because there aren't any; you're creating audio for a single chunk of video. So it's possible -- even likely -- that the dub audio will cross reel boundaries.

This makes life tricky, because what do you do if your new HD transfer has a different number from a particular reel than the DVD transfer, but the dub has audio going through that transition? Fixing that requires some careful editing of the video and audio, but it can be done.

But the real killer is if there's a DVD commentary track, because that's synced to the DVD edit, it's a mix of the original dub audio and the commentary, and the commentators talk straight through the reel changes, the inconsiderate chatterboxes! No amount of editing is going to fix that. Fortunately for us, ADV films preserved the pure commentary audio (just the commentators), and by carefully editing out some gaps, breaths, and "umms" in the minute or so before and after a reel-change point, you can keep them in sync with the new HD video.

The end result, by the way, is that our version of the films is very slightly different from both the DVD and Japanese HD transfer, but only in ways that don't really matter. In a way, it's similar to how, back in the day, when you watched a movie in a theater, what you'd see would be slightly different each time, depending on the reflexes of the projectionist.

[Bolo Seagull]

Once they confirm that it is open to Canada, I'm in.

[NLScavenger]

https://twitter.com/AnimEigo/status/1160281676632788993

The discs will not be region locked but we don’t know yet if we’ll be able to ship outside USA.

I'll be really upset if they're not able to ship to the Netherlands.

[Sylontack]

Counting down the days for this one, if they won't ship to Australia, I'll make it work . Hoping we manage the $150k stretch goal to use that Mikimoto art.

EDIT: In fact if they don't, and other Australian users here are also after the rewards, I might try organise something for all of us.

[Girls With Guns]

If they don't get permission to sell it outside the US, they may not make any of the stretch goals...

[Ben_C]

If it is available outside of the US, I'll be up for it (I've backed pretty much all of the Animeigo Kickstarters with the exception of Bubblegum Crisis, had to buy that one afterwards). Unlike Gunsmith Cats, Riding Bean and Otaku No Video, I've never seen this one, so would be interested in checking it out.

Just a shame the UK pound is doing so shit at the moment, as it'll mean this set costing much more than it should.