Perfect Blue (Blu-Ray)

[Jim Purcell]

No luck at the other Walmart either. Though it did have Liz and the Blue Bird, MAQUIA, Walk on Girl, and MFKZ all taunting me.

[Shingster]

Our american members might be mightily disappointed by how this release has turned out, but spare a thought for us Brits. Our release has a SRP of £99.99!

Anime Ltd. should have released it on April 1st!

OK, now we know that proffwho (or his source) has essentially been fed marketing taglines when it comes to this "much better" new restoration, I'm beginning to wonder about the revelation that the Japanese 5.1 mix is the original mix for the film. I mean, if the Japanese Mono is a fold-down of the original 5.1, why didn't they fold it down as stereo? Surely that's the obvious next step after 5.1 surround? What logical purpose does a mono fold down of a six channel film actually serve?

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by Shingster

OK, now we know that proffwho (or his source) has essentially been fed marketing taglines when it comes to this "much better" new restoration, I'm beginning to wonder about the revelation that the Japanese 5.1 mix is the original mix for the film. I mean, if the Japanese Mono is a fold-down of the original 5.1, why didn't they fold it down as stereo? Surely that's the obvious next step after 5.1 surround? What logical purpose does a mono fold down of a six channel film actually serve?

Well, I was just told things by people working on the project. I believed them, as, why wouldn't you if you had such info? I honestly had no clue about the DNR- I just heard it was a major improvement based on a "new restoration," and only now do I see what it became.

But, regarding the 5.1 mix, I heard that from ViCklatereur whom I would say is a reliable source, but as I don't know where he heard that info, it could be false.

[Shingster]

Yup, totally understandable and you've been unfairly maligned over in the US thread, I was about to tell certain members where to go when they closed it!

Hell I'm not even sure how much Anime Ltd. were aware of how bad this new restoration is, maybe the people working on the project were just passing on premium grade bullshit given to them by that crazy French restoration outfit doing the work! Obviously the buck stops with Anime Ltd. as the people who were commissioning this whole fiasco though! Sucks for them, but something tells me that people willing to fork out £80 or even £100 for the ultimate edition are probably not gonna be prioritising the presentation of the film itself!

[Girls With Guns]

Sold my extra copy of the Anime Limited UK release already, and I'll just be keeping the UK steelbook in my collection.

[Mikezilla3k]

To be honest, I don't see that big of a difference between the two Blu-Rays.

[emailking]

The blu-ray thread was closed for some reason? So I'll post here. I got this and saw this movie for the first time. The BD looked fine to me. I see there are arguments why a previous release was better, but eh I don't really like grain anyway. I don't mind some DNR (I know it can be overdone). I found the movie to be a drag until the last 20 minutes when it grabbed my attention and by the end I was intrigued and curious to watch it again. The special features are pretty good, and mostly answered the questions I had regarding the plot.

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by emailking

The blu-ray thread was closed for some reason?

Some insane muddafooker was harassing me for a full day and I gave an insanely long response telling him to stop and that’s when it closed.

[DukeTogo84]

So I watched the film a second time and noticed the wobble more when I watched it subtitled. I guess when the subtitles don't move and the picture does it's a bit more noticeable. When I watched it dubbed, I barely saw any wobble, but it's there for sure. Still, it's not very bad.

[eastx]

Originally Posted by Jim Purcell

No luck at the other Walmart either. Though it did have Liz and the Blue Bird, MAQUIA, Walk on Girl, and MFKZ all taunting me.

Speaking of MFKZ, does anyone know which format the included digital copy comes in? Does it use/port to Movies Anywhere?

[zenpai]

Originally Posted by eastx

Speaking of MFKZ, does anyone know which format the included digital copy comes in? Does it use/port to Movies Anywhere?

The banner on the back states Movies Anywhere as the main redemption source, but it can most likely be redeemed on Vudu as well, which would then port to your MA account.

[Magikor]

My Walmart also didn't get this in (they usually get all the GKids releases). Their website also doesn't even have it listed, so I'm assuming maybe they're just not carrying it?

[Shingster]

Originally Posted by professorwho

But, regarding the 5.1 mix, I heard that from ViCklatereur whom I would say is a reliable source, but as I don't know where he heard that info, it could be false.

You'll have to excuse my ignorance, but is this ViCklatereur basically just an anime vlogger?

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by Shingster

You'll have to excuse my ignorance, but is this ViCklatereur basically just an anime vlogger?

Well, he does reviews on French anime releases and works in the industry (still won't tell me what company, though). I personally trust him, but he doesn't have the credibility like someone who worked on the film would (that said, I haven't asked them what the original audio mix is). So, he's sort of like some of the forum posters here but he apparently works in the French anime distribution industry, or something like that. I'll ask where he heard it.

I could see this being native 5.1 given the year of release (1997), but as it was originally going to be an OVA, it could be stereo, so who knows?...

[Shingster]

It's a difficult one because the anime industry was definitely ahead of the curve when it comes to multichannel audio within the Japanese film industry (primarily because there's no original audio to record onto the 35mm film itself), but even then you would probably only be looking at the bigger budget animated features that were opting for native multichannel surround. If it wasn't for the fact that it is an anime feature, I would be arguing that mono makes a hell of a lot more sense.

Like I say though, there is doubt there from the simple existence of Japanese Mono for this film. If 5.1 is the native mix then the "basic" audio presentation would obviously be 2.0 surround (or standard stereo at the very least). There's no logical or practical reason for a Japanese mono track to exist for a multichannel film. It just makes no sense.

[Krampus_Sulley]

The ''new'' master it’s nothing to write home about

[NLScavenger]

The AC3 5.1 mix was made for the LD using the original digital multichannel materials. LD is based on HD telecine from original negative.

So maybe 2.0 Dolby Surround is the original mix?

[Dailyan]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

So maybe 2.0 Dolby Surround is the original mix?

That sounds about right. Unless it was a Woody Allen film, mono was/is pretty much a dead presentation in theaters.

[Shingster]

Awesome stuff NL! I take it you're translating the blurb in that photo when you mention "original digital multichannel materials"?

2.0 surround sound is usually the option chosen from a 4.0 mix, so obviously a 5.1 track can cover both that possibility and if it was legit six channel, but either way the fact it states "multichannel" proves that the mono ain't the original. I guess it's just been thrown in there on that LD for shits 'n' giggles I suppose - perhaps there was a feeling at the time that mono was a valid option for playback on old TVs? Who knows? I guess more realistically it could just be that mono was viewed as a sort of token format to include with LaserDisc releases at the time.

Either way, the mono is completely redundant for this film and unfortunately, like a cockroach, it's still being dumped onto releases more than twenty years later.

[NLScavenger]

Found a R2J DVD vs BD comparison (via Bullets 'n' Babes forum):

Originally Posted by Lourdes

Both discs are progressive

1.bd-j.jpg
1.r2j.jpg

2.bd-j.jpg
2.r2j.jpg

3.bd-j.jpg
3.r2j.jpg

4.bd-j.jpg
4.r2j.jpg

5.bd-j.jpg
5.r2j.jpg

Apparently the original R2J DVD uses the same materials as the LD. Description on CDJapan mentions the same stuff about the HD telecine and 5.1 mix.

Now that I look at those screenshots, I think the BD could also have been improved by merging the good details from the LD/DVD HD telecine onto the BD. The release group Judgment used that approach in their fan remaster of Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (screenshot comparison #1 | #2)

release notes:

There are a few observation i made, which i based my filtering on:

• DVD is overexposed at places
• BD grain is bad and completely destructive
• BD darks are completely crushed
• BD has a bad colour tints (green, blue, yellow) in different scenes
• BD has worse colour grading than the DVD, or is none existent
• BD is horrible shaky
• BD has lot of broken frames (burns, holes, glue etc)
• BD has some digital sampling artifacts due to the production
• BD has horrible blooming due to the bad transfer

Things i have fixed:

• Matched the DVD video to the BD one (frame count) (DVD)
• Lot of spots and broken frames fixed (several 10k spots and film defects on more than 20k frames) (BD/DVD)
• Colours, levels etc have been fixed according to my judgement (BD/DVD)
• Chroma shifts/bleeds fixed (BD/DVD)
• Shaky BD was stabilised (BD)
• DVD was completely cleaned up and adjusted for best merging (DVD)
• Combed frames fixed, even though all were progressive (DVD)
• Near complete removal of the bad grain (BD)
• Merging of the good DVD details into the BD
• Blacks are mostly restored (BD)
• Digital sampling artifacts fixed (BD)
• Fixed some animation defects (DVD/BD)
• Blooming fixed mostly (BD)

Things i assumed for my simple colour grading:

• snow white, moon white, vampires grey, teeth white, blood red, bright sun clouds white + sand whitish, dawn/dusk sun orange/red clouds orangish/redish, bright scenes bright not greyish, etc. make it look natural, since i don’t have any reference material

What can be improved:

• Some blurring from the DVD merged details
• Video is still quite dirty from the BD, lot more spots to clean up
• Some individual frame are still quite shaky
• there are a few individual frames where i messed up the filtering a bit

Source of the video is the english BD release and 3 different DVD releases (R1/R2). The DVDs and BD were first filtered separately and merged scene by scene afterwards. The matching of the DVD to the BD was quite hard. Not only was the DVD differently cropped by scene it was also transferred with a different angle, so frames were differently ‘warped’ in comparison to the BD. I had to ‘warp’ them to match the BD, additionally to cropping them appropriately.

--------------------

Originally Posted by Shingster

Awesome stuff NL! I take it you're translating the blurb in that photo when you mention "original digital multichannel materials"?

yep.

オリジナル・デジタルマルチ音源から新たにドルビーデジタル5.1chを作成

Newly created dolby digital 5.1ch from the original digital multi sound source.