Ninja Scroll (1993) Dec 4 pre-order

[ShuMai]

Ninja Scroll Blu-ray

Ninja Scroll Blu-ray Review

Not sure if this has been posted already but Sentai Filmworks just announced that they aquired the rights to Ninja Scroll for a North American release.

Their press release says "The anime that set the standard will be available for the first time ever on Blu-Ray, featuring an all-new, high-definition transfer straight from the source!"

Not quite the first time on Blu Ray, but close. I was actually going to put in my pre-order for the UK steel even though it's region locked but I think I'll hold off now for this release.

Press release here: http://www.sentai-filmworks.com/inde...ases&Itemid=64

[Clark Kent]

One of the most important anime features of all time, I hope the transfer is solid.

[seigneur_rayden]

Awesome news!!! I can't wait.

[MifuneFan]

It's also coming out in the UK, and in a nice Steelbook (standard ed. as well) for those that have region free players: https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Ninja...Blu-ray/46451/

[FromTheInside]

sweet!

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by Clark Kent

One of the most important anime features of all time

Where were you in the birth-of-anime 90's?

(Back then, we used to call those who were praising this movie to the skies "Scroll-heads", because many of them had started out as heavy-metal teens who'd heard all the J-fear "horror stories" on the news about all this new animation with sex, gore and babes, rushed down to their Blockbuster to find one, found only six anime tapes on the shelves, grabbed the first thing that looked remotely Japanese--"Cool, ninjas! "--got what they came for, and then pestered anime fan groups endlessly for "More cool gory stuff like Ninja Scroll--And none of that Pokemon or Sailor Moon crap, either!"
Needless to say, "Important" wasn't the word that sprang to mind at the time. For certain generations, for some reason, it does, and that's all I'm saying.)

[Taipan]

Originally Posted by ShuMai

Not sure if this has been posted already but Sentai Filmworks just announced that they aquired the rights to Ninja Scroll for a North American release.

Their press release says "The anime that set the standard will be available for the first time ever on Blu-Ray, featuring an all-new, high-definition transfer straight from the source!"

Not quite the first time on Blu Ray, but close. I was actually going to put in my pre-order for the UK steel even though it's region locked but I think I'll hold off now for this release.

Press release here: http://www.sentai-filmworks.com/inde...ases&Itemid=64

Thank you for posting this! I was going to import the UK steelbook, but I will wait now. Great news!

[Kentai]

Originally Posted by EricJ

Where were you in the birth-of-anime 90's?

Funny, I thought "anime" as most people recognize it started in the 60s...

Ninja Scroll was important in establishing that Japanese and Western animation had some core differences and raising awareness in a new generation of potential consumers that Anime had something for them that Western animation didn't, which in turn led to it getting attention on American cable networks and video stores specifically as a counter-culture product.

So, yes, I guess it was pretty important. Not to Japan, who had produced ninja action shows for decades, but to America and the Western World in general for learning it.


For what it's worth, the JP release doesn't look bad. There's some noise reduction on brighter areas which bums me out (but I'm OCD as all hell - YMMV), but there's still some film grain, and detail is quite solid. If you've only ever owned the Manga DVD, this is sure to be a major improvement.

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by Kentai

Funny, I thought "anime" as most people recognize it started in the 60s...

(Unless you're talking about anime in the US/UK, which started out as three or four years of garage companies releasing bizarre standalone theatrical features or OVA miniseries because they were cheaper than the good ones, and nobody could afford a TV series.
Back then, there were only a handful of them in existence in North America, and this was the kind of movie we watched "Project A-Ko", Dominion and "Castle of Cagliostro" to get away from...)

Ninja Scroll was important in establishing that Japanese and Western animation had some core differences and raising awareness in a new generation of potential consumers that Anime had something for them that Western animation didn't, which in turn led to it getting attention on American cable networks and video stores specifically as a counter-culture product.

One could say the same thing about Carl Macek and Streamline Pictures, and.....we don't.
There's obviously a bit of fan loyalty that puts a golden halo on the very name of "Ninja Scroll" that "Twilight of the Cockroaches" or "Rojin Z" doesn't have, and that's not exactly historical street-credit.

[Grimshaw23]

That's great news! Really love this movie. I will definitely pick this up once it hit $15 or less.
I've seen the picture quality of the Japanese blu-ray and it's definitely a step-up from the DVD but don't expect it to look as pristine as the newer animes out these days for obvious reasons. The quality is pretty solid for a movie of this age. Looking forward to it.

[Stinky-Dinkins]

Hopefully it won't be the same transfer as the Japanese release. The Japanese release has some of the worst black crush I've ever seen, a huge amount of detail is lost in the dark areas.

[Kentai]

So I guess the the US releases of Astroboy, Gigantor, Kimba the White Lion, Starblazers, Animal Treasure Island, Locke the Superman and so on don't count? Why's that? Because they weren't explicitly marketed as Japanese imports to an audience that couldn't care less where their cartoons came from?

I suppose one could make a case for something like Robotech and Battle for the Planets being a separate beast entirely, but those were hardly the norm.

Carl Macek gets a lot of flack (and deserves plenty of it), but we wouldn't HAVE a local industry offering unedited Japanese animation without him. Vampire Hunter D and Robot Carnival were the titles that introduced me to the very idea that there was a world of entertainment beyond what America had to offer at a fairly young age, and as much as it's fun to give Macek crap, the fact is I wouldn't be the person I am now without him, and I can't think of a single person has done as much to introduce the Western world to Japanese animation as he has.

Stinky, I take it you mean the UK DVD? That's a PAL conversion of the Japanese analog master, and man, it ain't pretty. That said, this film was always intended for a home video release, so even the 35mm negative likely has big swathes of black with very little detail to speak of; Kawajiri's always dabbled in minimalistic "monochrome" art with large areas of pitch black space, and both Wicked City and Demon City Shinjuku look quite similar on their "HD Remastered" DVD releases. The BD will be much nicer than anything we've seen before, but the notion of "shadow detail" may always be an iffy prospect from this particularly budget-conscious director.

[Stinky-Dinkins]

Originally Posted by Kentai

Stinky, I take it you mean the UK DVD? That's a PAL conversion of the Japanese analog master, and man, it ain't pretty

No, I mean whatever Blu Ray was already released. I believe it was the JPN BD. People posted direct caps here a while back but now I can't find them (probably erased when the forum crashed a while back.)

The fine detail resolution was excellent (big improvement over all pre-existing DVD offerings) but the black crush was horrendous, tons of detail was lost.

I'll look around and see if I can find them.

[Petra_Kalbrain]

Originally Posted by ShuMai

I was actually going to put in my pre-order for the UK steel even though it's region locked but I think I'll hold off now for this release.

Press release here: http://www.sentai-filmworks.com/inde...ases&Itemid=64

Originally Posted by Taipan

Thank you for posting this! I was going to import the UK steelbook, but I will wait now. Great news!

I don't know about you folks, but I'm excited that I'll now be able to have BOTH a functional NA version and a beautifully crafted steelbook to keep it in... and it will still cost me a helluva lot less than trying to get my hands on the Japanese BD, which is questionable at best when it comes to quality.

This news totally !!!

[Taipan]

Originally Posted by Petra_Kalbrain

I don't know about you folks, but I'm excited that I'll now be able to have BOTH a functional NA version and a beautifully crafted steelbook to keep it in... and it will still cost me a helluva lot less than trying to get my hands on the Japanese BD, which is questionable at best when it comes to quality.

This news totally !!!

Yeah, I may still preorder Ninja Scroll fom Amazon.uk.

[poke smot]

sweet....love this flick. first serious, action cartoon i fell in love with back in the day.

[Kriztoffer Swank]

Bad.ass. I hope it gets a good transfer. Either way, it'll be a major improvement over the single-layer Manga DVD, so I'm likely to buy it anyway.

This is the movie that I used to get my friends to actually ponder watching anime subtitled. Up till then they were dub-only and saw me as a snob for always wanting to watch subbed, and we watched Ninja Scroll on DVD and I had to bite my tongue because I was in the minority. (Six against one or something like that.)

But there's a part where a dude's slammin' it to a woman, and I cried bulls*** over how awful the English moaning was and said, "See here, it sounds way hotter in Japanese!" and our raging hormonal teenaged bodies sprout wood as big as trees when we made the switch and I opened their eyes to a whole new world of superior voice acting.

[Stinky-Dinkins]

Originally Posted by Kriztoffer Swank

"See here, it sounds way hotter in Japanese!" and our raging hormonal teenaged bodies sprout wood as big as trees when we made the switch and I opened their eyes to a whole new world of superior voice acting.

That is the single most homoerotic post in the history of this forum.

[Petra_Kalbrain]

Originally Posted by Stinky-Dinkins

That is the single most homoerotic post in the history of this forum.

Talking about six or seven guys sitting in the dark sprouting wood over japanimation sex scene audio definitely ranks pretty high in my books for that categorization as well.

[Kriztoffer Swank]

Originally Posted by Stinky-Dinkins

That is the single most homoerotic post in the history of this forum.

I aim to please.

If it makes it any more or less gay, the house we were in used to be a brothel.