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Hey, Answerman! - Back in the Side Saddle


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ZenAmako



Joined: 10 Jan 2011
Posts: 92
PostPosted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 3:04 pm Reply with quote
Cowboy Bebop should be native HD when it arrives on Blu-ray, with the exception of the bits with CG. It was animated with physical cels and photographed on film. The same applies to Escaflowne.

Anime made from about 2001 to 2008 (with the exception of big budget films) will benefit the least from Blu-ray because those are mostly standard definition digital animation.

FLCL (1999) was one of the earliest digital productions; hence why it is an upscale.

Anime made in the '70s, '80s and '90s has the potential to look wonderful in HD as long as the original negative is still available and they do a new HD transfer. Just look at the Bubblegum Crisis BD box available in Japan.
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Sunday Silence



Joined: 22 Jun 2010
Posts: 2047
PostPosted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 3:21 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Yu-Gi-Oh! is considered a children's property, first and foremost. Far be it from me to dash all your hopes and dreams of watching uncut Yu-Gi-Oh! released by Funimation (you know, provided they'd still be interested in the series after the first time the uncut DVDs failed to sell), and all the joy that would bring.


See, here's where i'm abit confused to this day; the uncut Yu-Gi-Oh/Shaman King DVD's only lasted for a few volumes before getting the axe. Yet, I never ever saw them at my local Borders or Anime Shop. Was the "low sales" truly due to the lack of sales, or was it the lack of supply?
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Weazul-chan



Joined: 10 May 2005
Posts: 625
Location: Michigan
PostPosted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 3:26 pm Reply with quote
Sunday Silence wrote:
Quote:
Yu-Gi-Oh! is considered a children's property, first and foremost. Far be it from me to dash all your hopes and dreams of watching uncut Yu-Gi-Oh! released by Funimation (you know, provided they'd still be interested in the series after the first time the uncut DVDs failed to sell), and all the joy that would bring.


See, here's where i'm abit confused to this day; the uncut Yu-Gi-Oh/Shaman King DVD's only lasted for a few volumes before getting the axe. Yet, I never ever saw them at my local Borders or Anime Shop. Was the "low sales" truly due to the lack of sales, or was it the lack of supply?
poor advertisement could have been a factor. outside of word of their release showing up once or twice on articles on anime news sites I saw no advertisement for them. I managed to find the first two uncut Yugioh DVDs fairly easily at Best Buy (two of my nieces were heavily into the series that year so I thought it would be the perfect gift for them), but I don't really remember ever seeing them anywhere else.
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Sunday Silence



Joined: 22 Jun 2010
Posts: 2047
PostPosted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 3:32 pm Reply with quote
Weazul-chan wrote:
Sunday Silence wrote:
Quote:
Yu-Gi-Oh! is considered a children's property, first and foremost. Far be it from me to dash all your hopes and dreams of watching uncut Yu-Gi-Oh! released by Funimation (you know, provided they'd still be interested in the series after the first time the uncut DVDs failed to sell), and all the joy that would bring.


See, here's where i'm abit confused to this day; the uncut Yu-Gi-Oh/Shaman King DVD's only lasted for a few volumes before getting the axe. Yet, I never ever saw them at my local Borders or Anime Shop. Was the "low sales" truly due to the lack of sales, or was it the lack of supply?
poor advertisement could have been a factor. outside of word of their release showing up once or twice on articles on anime news sites I saw no advertisement for them. I managed to find the first two uncut Yugioh DVDs fairly easily at Best Buy (two of my nieces were heavily into the series that year so I thought it would be the perfect gift for them), but I don't really remember ever seeing them anywhere else.


I know, right? How can you exactly equate "low sales, not gonna do it anymore, lolololol" when you don't even bother to put out product and advertise the fact?

For a company that prided itself on being merchandise whores, something is amiss when they don't heed the words of Yogurt.
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darcerin



Joined: 22 Apr 2005
Posts: 330
PostPosted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 3:45 pm Reply with quote
I agree, when I heard that they'd put out an uncut version, I went out to find it, not really a fan of Yugioh, but as a fan of anime in general - never saw hide or hair of it.
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ikillchicken



Joined: 12 Feb 2007
Posts: 7272
Location: Vancouver
PostPosted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 3:47 pm Reply with quote
Just a few minor corrections on the first question:

Quote:
Was that just an April Fool's joke, or is this real? If it is, delusional Yu-Gi-Oh! fans the world over can enjoy a brief, false hope at the perceived possibility of getting the respect and the proper treatment it doesn't actually deserve, if 4Kids does indeed lose the rights to market a kids show as a kids show.


Seriously guys. It's a kids show. If you still like it, that's cool. I'm not criticizing. Can we all please come back down to earth though and stop pretending that 4Kids is 'ruining' Yugioh by selling it as a kids show? They're just doing exactly what needs to be done to sell a Japanese kids show to an American audience and it's exactly what whoever picks up Yugioh after 4Kids collapses will do.

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

I don't have a problem with upscales. I don't really see much point in buying them. The only exception is my absolute favourite shows. I'd buy Cowboy Bebop in a heartbeat even if it was an upscale because it's still going to be an upgrade and for a show like that, I have to have the best. Otherwise though, no.
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bcbenn



Joined: 04 May 2007
Posts: 6
PostPosted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 3:47 pm Reply with quote
I'm certain I speak for many people that we hope all your medical experiences are over - I truly think there's a linear descent from medieval torture implements to modern medical "procedures".

Also hope that the Borders fiasco will not affect you in any harmful way, as well.

I really enjoy your column and sense of humor, although I haven't yet written any responses to your excellent questions.

All the best!
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kawaiibunny3



Joined: 10 Aug 2008
Posts: 534
Location: Houston, Texas
PostPosted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 4:10 pm Reply with quote
Sunday Silence wrote:
Weazul-chan wrote:
Sunday Silence wrote:
Quote:
Yu-Gi-Oh! is considered a children's property, first and foremost. Far be it from me to dash all your hopes and dreams of watching uncut Yu-Gi-Oh! released by Funimation (you know, provided they'd still be interested in the series after the first time the uncut DVDs failed to sell), and all the joy that would bring.


See, here's where i'm abit confused to this day; the uncut Yu-Gi-Oh/Shaman King DVD's only lasted for a few volumes before getting the axe. Yet, I never ever saw them at my local Borders or Anime Shop. Was the "low sales" truly due to the lack of sales, or was it the lack of supply?
poor advertisement could have been a factor. outside of word of their release showing up once or twice on articles on anime news sites I saw no advertisement for them. I managed to find the first two uncut Yugioh DVDs fairly easily at Best Buy (two of my nieces were heavily into the series that year so I thought it would be the perfect gift for them), but I don't really remember ever seeing them anywhere else.


I know, right? How can you exactly equate "low sales, not gonna do it anymore, lolololol" when you don't even bother to put out product and advertise the fact?

For a company that prided itself on being merchandise whores, something is amiss when they don't heed the words of Yogurt.


I remember buying the uncut Shaman King ones with my allowance at age 15 at best buy and they were my treasures.
then once i figured out they weren't making any more and my Shaman King love had faded, I donated them to a library.
I still find those volumes at used DVD stores and at a FYE where they charge full MSRP for things and I just kindof of chuckle at them. and amazon has them for like...a dollar each.

amazon has the Yugioh ones too (those are all for the expensive price of 4 dollars each! Rolling Eyes ) but those I think I only saw in the store once when they just came out, so...

so yeah, they definitely existed.
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Reaper gI



Joined: 05 Oct 2009
Posts: 299
Location: UK
PostPosted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 4:22 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
So, for those shows where a native HD release is impossible, my personal, unrepentant, completely my-own-views-and-not-those-of-Anime-News-Network-in-any-way of Blu-ray upscales is a resounding... eh. Here's the thing. To me, they look better than just a straight-up DVD. They do. They look better. On Funimation's discs specifically, at least. The colors are sharper, there's less grain and noise, and they just look better. They don't look as good as a "Native HD" series. They certainly don't look as good as something like Nausicaä, which was mastered on film. Upscales look marginally better than a DVD. It's not great, but it's okay.

Okay you don't understand.
Real HD is better because you CAN see the grain.
If it's lost noise and grain, that are there in the master, then that's destrucive to the video detail. Same as applying sharpness filters.

Using a BD should give some improvements anyway, due to having lower compression. So you get better audio and less artefacts.

Colour issues, you are only watching your NTSC dvds or a CRT TV, right?
If not they'll have colour correction issues.
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edzieba



Joined: 13 Dec 2006
Posts: 704
PostPosted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 5:00 pm Reply with quote
The problem is not that FLCL and similar digipaint shows released on BD are upscales. That's fine. The master tapes (usually digibeta) have a FAR higher bitrate than DVD, and even higher than BD. A properly done upscale would basically eliminate the encoding issues with DVD (blocking in high-motion scenes, interlacing, framerate conversion, etc). The release should be almost identical to playing back the master tape, with maybe a little AA added because of the lack of square pixels in the original and no straight 2:1 scaling.

However, FLCL is not a good upscale. It is, quite frankly, a shit upscale. A really nasty smear filter has been applied so strongly that the whole thing looks like it has been run through anextra heavy blur filter, followed by piles and piles of Unsharp Mask, followed by an auto-vector-trace. Smeary nastyness.

Up until Ouran, Funimation were quite happily doing this to their own releases. Thankfully, they stopped after years of complaints, and the Ouran BD and later have been a definite improvement. Unfortunately Q-Tec, the largest disc authoring studio in Japan, have become infamous for exactly this sort of smearing nonsense (they often don't even bother to deinterlace first!) to the point the practice is often referred to as "Q-Tec upscaling" regardless of the source studio, and it's spreading to other studios. Starchild's releases, of which FLCL is one, are often just as bad, or worse (the shockingly ugly Stellvia BD, or the unbelievably awful Blue Seed).


There's "doing the best with the source material you have", and then there's "screwing things up so badly a DVD with 1/5 the bitrate - and using MPEG 2 - manages to look better".
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ZipZapZopTitania



Joined: 18 Sep 2010
Posts: 132
PostPosted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 5:33 pm Reply with quote
I'd probably only watch Sailor Moon if it got an uncut dub in the States...otherwise I don't think I'd stick with it for all fifty-seven point two series. So I'm kind of hoping it gets rereleased. If FUNi does it, I'll definitely watch it.

It's gotta happen soon, right? I mean, Usagi Tsukino even created a new hairstyle phenomenon, for Pete's sake. I'm totally lobbying for FUNi; maybe the new management will...ah...hint hint, Mr. Fukunaga?

Also: the Flakes are back! How I miss those every week...xP Somebody's gonna buy bleachstreaming.com now and do something stupid with it. But I loved that little short film; cliche but adorable~
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Pepperidge



Joined: 13 Sep 2003
Posts: 1104
Location: British Columbia, Canada
PostPosted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 5:46 pm Reply with quote
ZenAmako wrote:
Cowboy Bebop should be native HD when it arrives on Blu-ray, with the exception of the bits with CG. It was animated with physical cels and photographed on film. The same applies to Escaflowne.

Anime made from about 2001 to 2008 (with the exception of big budget films) will benefit the least from Blu-ray because those are mostly standard definition digital animation.

FLCL (1999) was one of the earliest digital productions; hence why it is an upscale.

Anime made in the '70s, '80s and '90s has the potential to look wonderful in HD as long as the original negative is still available and they do a new HD transfer. Just look at the Bubblegum Crisis BD box available in Japan.


Was going to post to say just that. Digital television animation produced for the bulk of the last decade are the only titles that are forever trapped in the void of upscale-only releases. Pretty much any television animated series before that can be given a proper native HD master.

For the record, Sunrise already has produced a native HD master of the Cowboy Bebop series. In fact, those masters were used for the latest DVD release in Japan. We're just waiting for them to finally put it out on Blu-ray so we can actually see it in full HD resolution.
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Keichitsu0305





PostPosted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 6:21 pm Reply with quote
ZipZapZopTitania wrote:
I'd probably only watch Sailor Moon if it got an uncut dub in the States...otherwise I don't think I'd stick with it for all fifty-seven point two series. So I'm kind of hoping it gets rereleased. If FUNi does it, I'll definitely watch it.

Also: the Flakes are back! How I miss those every week...xP Somebody's gonna buy bleachstreaming.com now and do something stupid with it. But I loved that little short film; cliche but adorable~


I loved the short film too. It reminded me of a longer verison of the rain scene in My Neighbor Totoro. Plus, it was way cuter than what Mr. Answerman usually plays after reading the Flake of the Week. ^^

Oh!! If Funimation re-releases AND dubs Sailor Moon, I'll be so delighted I could cry! Anime hyper But (since may or may not happen) I'll try and not get my hopes up. Anime cry
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utawoutau



Joined: 27 Feb 2004
Posts: 190
PostPosted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 7:08 pm Reply with quote
My ears always perk up when I hear mention of Utena. I'm so excited for the rerelease!
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GATSU



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 15279
PostPosted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 7:09 pm Reply with quote
I personally think that there's still an audience for Sailor Moon, but the weakened home video market and the suckonomy might make releasing box-sets of it a bit more of a financial challenge than there'd be in the past. My feeling is that it will be re-released here, but only via streaming for the time being.
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