Forum - View topicHey, Answerman! - Back in the Side Saddle
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Paploo
Posts: 1875 |
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Buying the manga reissue probably wouldn't hurt the chances of getting the anime reissued- don't know if it'll increase the possibility, but seeing there's still a BIG interest in the franchise is probably a good thing.
As for the uncut YuGiOh/Shaman King dvd's- Funimation dropped the YuGiOh license awhile back, so not sure how interested they'd be. Plus, those uncut dvd's were hyped just as much online as any other product of that time, and I'm still finding clearanced volumes of Shaman King in dvd bins [have both, and the dvd's are nice enough, surprised it didn't take off] |
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Thunderbird-
 Posts: 60 |
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I think that what happened with Sailor Moon is Funimation asked Toei who much they wanted for the license and Toei told them something that would be comparable to the combined amount of money Funimation has spent on Dragon Ball/Z/GT/Kai/DBox/movie licenses. And Funimation knows that Sailor Moon is popular but they don't know how popular. So they licensed Kaleido Star and said "From the director of Sailor Moon and Princess Tutu. And now they're probably going to use Kaleido Star to tell if there is a big enough market for Sailor Moon.
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asimpson2006
 Posts: 3151 Location: USA |
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I must be the only person on the site who think the FLCL BD doesn't look that bad. I mean it's watchable, and even Zac said it looks good and so did the person who reviewed on Blu-ray.com.
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GWOtaku
 Posts: 678 |
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Particularly good and down-to-Earth stuff this week. On Sailor Moon, I do think it is liable to come sooner rather than much later. It's not just Italy now; the property was recently licensed again for German-speaking areas of Europe as well. Doesn't seem like Toei is really holding onto it that tightly these days.
I do agree about not getting worked up over vague rumors though. I can't see its status in Italy having much to do with the market that all parties know exists in the U.S.
Agreed. Anime on Blu-Ray is generally just fine. I've definitely found Blu-ray.com very reliable on this stuff. It is good FUNimation now singles out what releases are native HD though. |
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hissatsu01
 Posts: 963 Location: NYC |
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This is one of those TL;DR type posts, so if you don't care about the minutiae of upscales and the issues surrounding them, you should probably just skip it.
I'm going to have to have to consider the answer regarding upscales to be at least somewhat ill-informed. I'll set aside the issue of Cowboy Bebop, since it's already been addressed. But the conflation of all upscales into a monolithic entity is where I really have to take issue. There are good upscales and bad ones. A good upscale is not magic, but it should be just about free of compression artifacts that are usually present on DVD releases, and perhaps show a little more detail. A bad upscale is one that adds brand new deficiences such as noise reduction, edge enhancement and filtering that smears lines. Funimation upscales had a rather bad reputation prior to their release of Ouran, but after that they really improved (aside from the recent FLCL release, where they reused the JP upscale). Samurai Champloo is the release that inaugurated their upscales, and not in a good way. Yes it has far fewer compression artifacts and brighter colors than the DVD. But "there's less grain and noise" is by no means a good thing when then the grain/noise was purposely added, and in digital animation from a component master, any noise/grain effects are there purposefuly. I am not talking about noise due to mpeg artifacts on a DVD. Saying it's good that it's gone is akin to saying that film releases are better when all film grain has been scrubbed away by DNR. That has happened to quite a few live-action releases, and many people may like it that way, but most film buffs and videophiles would probably disagree. That in scene after scene Samurai Champloo on BD can be shown to be less detailed than the DVD, not just in the disappearance of noise in scenes that had it added, but the smearing of details as well, that makes it a bad upscale. Yes, it's "cleaner," but that is not a good thing. FLCL is a similar situation, though not as severe. Yes, it's early digital animation. But that the filtering that was done to it unnecessarily smears lines. Sure the DVDs had issues. The BDs fix some of those issues then add issues all of their own, issues that are not inherent to the original animation, as much as some people may claim. Smeared lines and backgrounds the wind up looking like oil paintings were not "features" of early digital animation. Jagged lines, flat shading, and limited color palettes yes. What's perhaps most frustrating about "bad" upscales is two-faceted. First, the people who don't mind their appearance generally don't notice when those things aren't done. Funi made a great shift in how they upscale about a year ago, going from one of the worst, to one of the best. And while there was plenty of complaining about their upscales before that, there was no complaining after the change. Second, if you really do like your anime to look scrubbed clean of any noise/grain and sharp lines everywhere, just about all TVs and players sold in the past few years have noise reduction and sharpening options that can recreate that look. So basically, the people that don't mind it generally don't notice it when it isn't done, all to create an effect that can be easily recreated on most people's setups, without having to force it onto everyone. So what's a good upscale? Sticking to just US releases, I'd say most of Funimation's upscales released in the past year (aside from FLCL), the Diebuster movie (most reviewers completely failed to notice it was an upscale), and R.O.D. The OVA portion of R.O.D. is only about a year younger than FLCL, and the limitations of digital animation of the time are on full display, but that is what "as good as it's going to get" actually is - if just being an upscale of early digital anime is enough to get people complaining, there should have been complaints about that upscale, and I don't recall any at all. The upcoming Baccano! release is also significantly better than the previous Funimation DVD release. |
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Panon
Posts: 242 |
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Upscales feeling like an upgrade says less about the quality of the upscales and more about the general poor quality of American anime dvds, honestly.
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Paploo
Posts: 1875 |
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But Kaliedo Stars already has a sales history, as does Sailor Moon, via their previous releases. I think they licensed Kaliedo Star because it's Kaliedo Star, and because it's a Gonzo title, whom they have a business relationship with for catalogue titles. Though the show got made via a coproduction with ADV, who had a good history with Junichi Sato's works in the past and at a time when Sailor Moon fandom was at a high [the majority of his anime have been licensed in the US- mostly I think due to his generally high quality. I really loved Jubei-Chan and Pretear's got a nice cult following. Him having directed Sailor Moon doesn't hurt, but to me it seems like fans who follow works based on creative teams is a minority- people mostly seem to follow fandom-wise than creator-wise *this is just a personal observation*] So yeah, basically, I think it's moreso Funi picked it up due to their assorted Gonzo deals and it's existing history/already produced dub. I imagine they already know how well they'd probably do with Sailor Moon, and how another show does won't impact things. Which leads us to.... I'm gonna agree with Brian- we'll see Sailor Moon dvd's again, but no one knows exactly when. It's all in Toei's and Naoko Takeuchi's hands, and we just have to be patient [or watch for the Geneon/Pioneer dvd's wherever we go] |
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kailegh
 Posts: 66 |
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D'aaw the video <3
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toyNN
 Posts: 252 Location: Seattle, WA |
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That 'flak' vid rain town is by animation student, Hiroyasu Ishida, who also created the online anime short hit Fumiko’s Confession. Ishida studies at the Kyoto Seika University’s Faculty of Manga, and rain town was his award winning graduation project.
Another impressive one-person anime with just amazing art and animation in both of these shorts. I hope to see his work soon in a full anime project. |
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Wrial Huden
 Posts: 149 Location: McKinney, TX |
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Supporting the re-release of the Sailor Moon manga could definitely improve the chances of the anime getting a re-release!
And (dare I say it?) we'll finally see Sailor Stars get a NA release!!! |
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14784 |
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They also have to convince the B&M store managers to stock it. They obviously would want the stores to stock their products, but B&M stores have limited valuable shelf space and if the store managers aren't convinced it'll sell compared to something else, then there's nothing they can do. The store managers are the gatekeepers. People seem to think that stores will just take in whatever anime companies shovel at them, like stores just rubberstamp the anime companies' decisions.
I think no one else will pick up Yu-Gi-Oh unless there's a guarantee it'll be on national TV somewhere. The value of that product depends a lot on its card game, but without national exposure, there's not much value to that product. Forget broadcast networks: they had soured on Saturday morning cartoons - 4Kids was the last bastion of that, and they did it by paying for the block! CN, Disney, Nick, etc. don't license their own anime anymore - they leave it for other companies to acquire the license and just televise it. So I think Yu-Gi-Oh will be left in license limbo unless something drastic happens.
Um, no, when they come out with even better and better resolutions and TV sets even way beyond 1080p (there already are), then any 1080p digital show would also need to be upscaled too - and so on and so forth. At some point, it should be indistinguishable to the human eye, but there'd be always those pushing for even higher greatness. Ah, the price of progress. 
I remember when I had videos of the different Sailor Moon 1st OP languages from all over the world. The German one was interesting.
Eh, people only start to care about indie animation when it looks anime.........ish....... Though both good, I personally think Koji Yamamura's Mt. Head to be the better work. Yet no one, not even indie poseurs, ever says to see his work on any full anime soon. 
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Kyosuke_
Posts: 56 |
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Brian: As a Duke fan, I'm not sure how but you guys played the perfect second half. Williams is a monster. Oh well, as you know it's not easy to go 6 games in the tournament.
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bglassbrook
 Posts: 1243 Location: Gaithersburg, MD |
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So, was Brian daring the universe to an R1 Yu-Gi-Odex dub release? Perhaps make folks choose to sit through one or the other before watching some new major release.
*taps foot impatiently while waving wallet* Here kitty-kitty-kitty-kitty. |
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CG-LOVER
 Posts: 355 Location: East Lansing, MI |
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So basically is your point that the worst upscales can actually look worse than that DVDs then (something which seems unbelievably counterproductive...which is why I don't really believe it)? |
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hissatsu01
Posts: 963 Location: NYC |
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Because the anime industry has never done anything counter-productive before... whether it's worse or not is something I'll leave for others to decide. But I will say that the Samurai Champloo upscale is generally less detailed than the DVD. That I consider a failure.
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