×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Forum - View topic
REVIEW: Sailor Moon S Blu-Ray


Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3  Next

Note: this is the discussion thread for this article

Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
NJ_



Joined: 31 Oct 2009
Posts: 3100
Location: Wallington, NJ
PostPosted: Sat Dec 10, 2016 12:02 am Reply with quote
SailorNaruto wrote:
Whether it's the Manga, the 90s anime, or Crystal, the Infinity arc is easily the strongest. Or second strongest if you count stars.


I disagree since I hated Stars in both versions (not counting the anime's Nehellenia arc, those episodes were actually great). Infinity was definitely the strongest in the anime but I personally thought Dream was much stronger in the manga.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
levonr



Joined: 19 Nov 2003
Posts: 820
PostPosted: Sat Dec 10, 2016 5:25 am Reply with quote
ryoukosan245 wrote:
Hmm seems like Viz is still having Issues with the video quality.


Its horrible, I can't watch the show like that. I recommend the Australian DVD release which has the best quality. I don't know why Viz couldn't have such good quality as the Madman Entertainment release. I mean I heard their excuses but come on...
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
whiskeyii



Joined: 29 May 2013
Posts: 2266
PostPosted: Sat Dec 10, 2016 1:54 pm Reply with quote
Levonr wrote:
ryoukosan245 wrote:
Hmm seems like Viz is still having Issues with the video quality.


Its horrible, I can't watch the show like that. I recommend the Australian DVD release which has the best quality. I don't know why Viz couldn't have such good quality as the Madman Entertainment release. I mean I heard their excuses but come on...


Out of curiosity, does the Australian version come with a dub as well? Or just subs?*

I'm a little surprised that the weak villains weren't addressed--not the daemons themselves, but the Witches 5. Kaolinite gets a lot of characterization, as does Mimete, but the other three just kind of show up only to get bumped off.

I am a little sad that the intelligent change up of DiC's dub in using French got tossed, and I think the nature of the joke changes if you make Usagi struggle with fancy English, since the implication is that she's crude or "low-born", not necessarily bad with language. Then again, when I went to school in the North, they taught French there, but in the South, it's Spanish, so maybe this joke just wouldn't quite work regardless.

Kind of odd to hear about untranslated subs in this day and age, though, even with the added explanation. Still, I enjoy the dub work, and this is my favorite season, so it's pretty much a guaranteed buy for me.

EDIT: The Australian version does come with the exact same dub, excellent!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
1dbad



Joined: 12 Jul 2015
Posts: 726
Location: Texas
PostPosted: Sat Dec 10, 2016 5:33 pm Reply with quote
whiskeyii wrote:
I'm a little surprised that the weak villains weren't addressed--not the daemons themselves, but the Witches 5. Kaolinite gets a lot of characterization, as does Mimete, but the other three just kind of show up only to get bumped off.

I've always been under the impression that S got rushed near the end. It would explain why the last three were around for such a short while, despite that not happening with any other villains in the 90s anime. It would also explain why S is the shortest of all the seasons.

whiskeyii wrote:
I am a little sad that the intelligent change up of DiC's dub in using French got tossed, and I think the nature of the joke changes if you make Usagi struggle with fancy English, since the implication is that she's crude or "low-born", not necessarily bad with language.

I think the worst part is Viz didn't do much with the class barrier. It felt more like Usagi was getting too in her head than actually struggling with higher society.

If they didn't want to go for a language barrier, I think something like Edwards using really big words would have worked better. Usagi's worst subject is English, so her not knowing her vocabulary words would have been perfectly in character.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Yahoo Messenger
CandisWhite



Joined: 19 Apr 2015
Posts: 282
PostPosted: Sat Dec 10, 2016 7:57 pm Reply with quote
I haven't been overly impressed with the Viz dub to date (It's not something that I have the desire to watch over and over) but am actually looking forward to this set because the Cloverway dub was sooo bad that this will be an improvement by default. The set's on my Christmas list so we'll see.

1dbad wrote:
Viz revealed at a Moonlight Party that the random Japanese phrases like “gomen-ne” were a request from the original songwriter. She felt none of the English translations properly captured the feeling of the original word, and that leaving it untranslated wouldn't matter since "music transcends language". I disagree, but I understand Viz's hands being tied on the matter.

Now that's vanity/silliness of a high degree: The whole point of translating a language, especially when it is simply going to be subtitled, is for people who don't understand the language to be able to engage with the original content; Why cut out people who don't speak the language?

Music is universal, yes; Lyrics, without understanding, no.

There are many, many, many, languages in the world and everyone cannot be expected to know every one of them, in whole or in part; Every attempt to bring people closer should be celebrated: A person who knows not one word of Japanese should be able to watch this and enjoy it.

I'm curious as to what happened between the ADV & Pioneer releases and the Viz ones to give her such power.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Sailor Sedna





PostPosted: Sat Dec 10, 2016 9:31 pm Reply with quote
Very good review of my favorite Sailor Moon season. I agree, the Sailors definitely feel like they are a team here, a team of pretty soldiers in Sailor Suits who work together to fight evil, and Ami, Makoto, Minako and Rei develop here (and we see their interactions with the Outers, and who could forget Yuuichirou?) and still feel important to the Sailor Team despite not getting their Planet Powers, Mercury Aqua Mirages, Jupiter Coconut Cyclones, Venus Wink Chain Swords and Mars Snake Fires, but there are some things I do disagree with:

Michiru still feels like an actual character to me with an actual personality (being elegant, mature), especially compared to her Crystal counterpart where she has no personality and was just "there" as the "Sailor with the Deep Aqua Mirror", and not only can she be cold in battle, she's the more caring among her and Uranus and seems to think differently than Uranus and not always thinking the worst, like spoiler[ her being glad Unazuki's pure heart wasn't a talisman, wondering if she and Uranus should just talk things over and try to work with the Inners, after returning a pure heart to someone, tells him to run for it, and she helped Ami (whom I had a crush on Anime smile) get over her doubts ]. She and Haruka both share their development together in this season, rather than in the manga/Crystal it just has Haruka just hog all the spotlight mostly and have it be about her. Haruka didn't really fall for Michiru that quickly from what I remember in the flashback, they seem at odds with each other, but then after Michiru's revelation, and you can see a certain element thing that shows that they've grown after time has passed.

Usagi still feels like she's developed here and gets a bit of development to me. Usagi gets more development during the second half of this season, but you still can see how much she's grown in these episodes (even if she still acts silly sometimes), especially 91, spoiler[ when she wonders if she has to retire being a Sailor Soldier, worrying she won't be able to protect others in danger, and when she still rushes into battle when she can't even transform to help her friends and Mamoru (who isn't really supposed to stand out) from danger].

I thought the animation here was pretty good and far improved upon what was in seasons 1 and 2, though there is use of stock footage and the animation style does keep changing, and it isn't perfect in spots (like in one scene a man was missing the inside of his mouth Laughing). The art is still good though mostly, especially with animators like Ikuko Ito and Katsumi Tamegai. It still looks pretty and way better than most modern day anime (just looked at the shot of the new Pokemon anime here, my God that looks horrendous! Shocked), and it improves greatly with upcoming episodes (though it isn't as great as Ghibli).

One other thing to ask, Rebecca (sorry to hear your discs were scratched), is the picture quality better than Pioneer's? I've got Heart Collections II, III and VI from the original releases (episodes 97-108, and 121-127) and the picture quality there is fine to me albeit being specks of grain and the picture shaking (which I don't mind there).

Great review once again, way better than this trainwreck I read here (this reviewer completely missed the point of this season, I'm not kidding, plus part of their review sounds insulting to SM fans): http://www.themanime.org/viewreview.php?id=1451

@TranceLimit174

The only thing that's even remotely similar to R from what I know of is spoiler[Hotaru turning into Mistress 9 like with Chibi-Usa turning into Black Lady, and even then it was different, as Hotaru already was possessed by Mistress 9 rather than Wiseman turning Chibi-Usa into her older, evil form.]

@1dbad

Stars actually is the shortest, S has 38 episodes and Stars has only 34.

[Edit]: joined consecutive posts. Errinundra.


Last edited by Sailor Sedna on Sat Dec 17, 2016 10:25 am; edited 5 times in total
Back to top
ryoukosan245



Joined: 09 Oct 2016
Posts: 81
PostPosted: Sun Dec 11, 2016 7:41 am Reply with quote
whiskeyii wrote:
Out of curiosity, does the Australian version come with a dub as well? Or just subs?*

I'm a little surprised that the weak villains weren't addressed--not the daemons themselves, but the Witches 5. Kaolinite gets a lot of characterization, as does Mimete, but the other three just kind of show up only to get bumped off.

I am a little sad that the intelligent change up of DiC's dub in using French got tossed, and I think the nature of the joke changes if you make Usagi struggle with fancy English, since the implication is that she's crude or "low-born", not necessarily bad with language. Then again, when I went to school in the North, they taught French there, but in the South, it's Spanish, so maybe this joke just wouldn't quite work regardless.

Kind of odd to hear about untranslated subs in this day and age, though, even with the added explanation. Still, I enjoy the dub work, and this is my favorite season, so it's pretty much a guaranteed buy for me.

EDIT: The Australian version does come with the exact same dub, excellent!


Umm, Sailor Moon S & SuperS were originally dubbed by Cloverway, not DiC.

[Edit]: removed unnecessary nested quotes. Please read the quoting guidelines. Errinundra.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
1dbad



Joined: 12 Jul 2015
Posts: 726
Location: Texas
PostPosted: Sun Dec 11, 2016 8:47 am Reply with quote
@CandisWhite Agreed. Thankfully all of the other songs that have been subbed thus far had fully English translations, so it seems to just be that one song/writer in particular was a problem.

Sailor Sedna wrote:
@1dbad

Stars actually is the shortest, S has 38 episodes and Stars has only 34.

My bad. But that makes my theory of S being rushed feel even more likely. Stars may have cut a couple of Animates, but they did a better job of balancing the screentime of the Animates they did have.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Yahoo Messenger
Sailor Sedna





PostPosted: Sun Dec 11, 2016 3:37 pm Reply with quote
It's alright. But yeah, S does seem rushed towards the end (wish the other three Witches 5 had more screentime), and episode 127, the final episode (which I see as underrated honestly) was where to me Masahiro Ando's artstyle started to deteriorate. At least we still got a good finale and they did a good job with two of the Witches 5. I'd have tried to use the other three in between episodes with Eudial and Mimette to try to balance it out.
Back to top
1dbad



Joined: 12 Jul 2015
Posts: 726
Location: Texas
PostPosted: Sun Dec 11, 2016 6:17 pm Reply with quote
Sailor Sedna wrote:
It's alright. But yeah, S does seem rushed towards the end (wish the other three Witches 5 had more screentime), and episode 127, the final episode (which I see as underrated honestly) was where to me Masahiro Ando's artstyle started to deteriorate. At least we still got a good finale and they did a good job with two of the Witches 5. I'd have tried to use the other three in between episodes with Eudial and Mimette to try to balance it out.

Rotating between them would have been a good way to keep things fresh. If there's one upside to their short screentime, it's that the last 3 witches got to be much more impressive to make up for it.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Yahoo Messenger
EricJ2



Joined: 01 Feb 2014
Posts: 4016
PostPosted: Sun Dec 11, 2016 7:57 pm Reply with quote
1dbad wrote:
Sailor Sedna wrote:
It's alright. But yeah, S does seem rushed towards the end (wish the other three Witches 5 had more screentime), and episode 127, the final episode (which I see as underrated honestly) was where to me Masahiro Ando's artstyle started to deteriorate. At least we still got a good finale and they did a good job with two of the Witches 5. I'd have tried to use the other three in between episodes with Eudial and Mimette to try to balance it out.

Rotating between them would have been a good way to keep things fresh. If there's one upside to their short screentime, it's that the last 3 witches got to be much more impressive to make up for it.


Yes, but they have to go with the Dark Generals idea from the first series, that each villain has to fail first, while the others backstab and plot against them jockeying for power. The four sisters in R play up more of the idea of rotating villains, but they weren't each separately killed off at their ends like the Generals or Witches 5.
I'd rather have had a little less Eudial to make room--since we got her idea quickly on, but she had to be the one for the big halfway-point showdown--than less Mimete(!), but the story has to play up the point that the last Witch was deliberately done in by the next one...
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
Sailor Sedna





PostPosted: Sun Dec 11, 2016 9:08 pm Reply with quote
Agreed, the last three witches still were impressive despite their short screentime.

Just wondering though, how is the picture quality compared to Pioneer's? I thought Pioneer's was fine despite being grain and such.

Now that I look at it, season 3 of Crystal feels more rushed (picture/animation wise) compared to S. Both have good animation, but there's something about S's that makes it greater to me, I'm not sure why...probably because it's hand drawn or something?
Back to top
CornBreadMan264





PostPosted: Mon Dec 12, 2016 1:08 am Reply with quote
Levonr wrote:
ryoukosan245 wrote:
Hmm seems like Viz is still having Issues with the video quality.


Its horrible, I can't watch the show like that. I recommend the Australian DVD release which has the best quality. I don't know why Viz couldn't have such good quality as the Madman Entertainment release. I mean I heard their excuses but come on...


I blame Toei for giving them Inferior masters & not telling Viz that there was two sets of masters at the time.
Back to top
1dbad



Joined: 12 Jul 2015
Posts: 726
Location: Texas
PostPosted: Mon Dec 12, 2016 4:31 am Reply with quote
Sailor Sedna wrote:
Both have good animation, but there's something about S's that makes it greater to me, I'm not sure why...probably because it's hand drawn or something?

Anime is still mostly drawn by hand nowadays. It's just the coloring that has moved from being painted by hand to being colored digitally.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Yahoo Messenger
NJ_



Joined: 31 Oct 2009
Posts: 3100
Location: Wallington, NJ
PostPosted: Mon Dec 12, 2016 6:38 am Reply with quote
CandisWhite wrote:
Now that's vanity/silliness of a high degree: The whole point of translating a language, especially when it is simply going to be subtitled, is for people who don't understand the language to be able to engage with the original content; Why cut out people who don't speak the language?

Music is universal, yes; Lyrics, without understanding, no.

There are many, many, many, languages in the world and everyone cannot be expected to know every one of them, in whole or in part; Every attempt to bring people closer should be celebrated: A person who knows not one word of Japanese should be able to watch this and enjoy it.

I'm curious as to what happened between the ADV & Pioneer releases and the Viz ones to give her such power.


It's Toei, the same people who don't understand the English language which is why we have seen so many mistakes on their shows that have been streamed, with some on DVD, for years (recent examples being Crystal season 3 and parts of Dragon Ball Super) because they have their own people doing translations.

cornbreadman448 wrote:
I blame Toei for giving them Inferior masters & not telling Viz that there was two sets of masters at the time.


There might be truth to the different masters issue since it recently happened with Digimon in the UK (Manga used the US Fox Kids broadcast masters that Madman used for their DVDs instead of what Cinedigm used which are different) but that doesn't excuse Viz for lying about the remaster in the beginning and for lying recently about why this particular set took so long, especially since it's the exact same video that's on Hulu posted over a year ago, it also doesn't help that they went with an authoring house who has a bad track record with video quality and continue to use them (see Moribito, Gargantia and for recent examples, look at Crystal season 1 & their Bleach upscale).
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3  Next
Page 2 of 3

 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group