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ANNCast - Over the Moon


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JoeyB



Joined: 14 Nov 2014
Posts: 1
PostPosted: Fri Nov 14, 2014 12:42 am Reply with quote
Wow. Just wow.

The set 1 DVD's with the pillarboxing are now a "collector's item." You've got to be kidding me. Completely delusional.

Sailor Moon has always been my favorite anime, and I had every single intention to buy the entire series, movies, and specials, but that statement alone has convinced me to save my hard-earned money. It seems like Charlene and Julie are truly big fans of the series and have worked hard to make this release a success. There's a lot to like here with a great new dub, great audio, and an overall better presentation than what we've gotten before with the abominable ADV releases.

I was willing to forgive bad video quality. I didn't even think it was as bad as what people were making it out to be, but this flippant, arrogant, and condescending attitude to the fans was the straw that broke the camel's back. Are you KIDDING me?! ALL these sets are supposed to be collector's items and special for the fans. YOU made a mistake, YOU let this slip through quality control, and you have the nerve to act like this is some sort of selling point? The VERY LEAST you can do is own up to your mistake and correct it. The fans deserve far more respect that this delusional, piss-poor attitude.

And to top it all off, to anyone who thinks the video quality is going to improve anytime soon, think again. After viewing the first half of R on itunes, towards the end of the Makaiju Arc, the video quality gets far WORSE. The image gets horribly and consistently blurry and the colors are dark and muddy. What a disappointment.

Oh well. Viz just lost a very valuable customer and will lose many more. I will probably continue watching on Hulu, and I do enjoy the new dub. But at this point in time, it just feels like a complete rip off to spend any more money on such an inferior product and to be treated to this shitty attitude.
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Angel M Cazares



Joined: 23 Sep 2010
Posts: 5406
Location: Iscandar
PostPosted: Fri Nov 14, 2014 12:42 am Reply with quote
willag wrote:
So I just avoid thinking too much on the negative things, because I want to stay focused on the positive things:
  • The chance to own all seasons of Sailor Moon.
  • Own the earlier seasons of Sailor Moon without paying an arm and a leg ...
  • ... at better quality than ADV's release ...
  • ... with a new, good English dub that's more accurate than the original ...
  • ... in really nice packaging.

All-in-all, it's a win for me. Is it a perfect release? No, but I rarely ever come across a perfect release. But I am very satisfied with it, and there are more positives than negatives.


I agree. Those are very valid points. I also see more positives than negatives with this new release.
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Asrialys



Joined: 12 Dec 2006
Posts: 1159
PostPosted: Fri Nov 14, 2014 12:53 am Reply with quote
So videophiles of VIZ, what happened with Lagrange Season 1?
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roseversailles



Joined: 13 Sep 2012
Posts: 236
Location: Washington, U.S.
PostPosted: Fri Nov 14, 2014 1:43 am Reply with quote
Very disappointed in what Viz had to say, and very grateful to Zac for pursuing the issue for so long and voicing the thoughts many of us have had. I was super excited to hear about this new release, pre-ordered day one, and was ready to finally get a good looking version of this show (I have about three different DVD releases of the whole series, as well as fansub VHS tapes from the old days). I've spent thousands of dollars on Sailor Moon and was perfectly ready to plop down more for a true collector's dream come true.

However, the color boosting and smearing is inexcusable. The ghosting and aliasing are awful and have no business being in a proper release, but I could overlook it to a degree. But the awful red tones! Lack of grain, excessive DNR, and NO WAY is this not an authoring issue. I'm seriously rethinking buying any more of the future sets, and if I do it will only be for the dub and the packaging, which better make up for the video. And to hear that they are aware of the many frustrated customers, and have no intention of re-authoring the discs for a replacement program? Unbelievable. I know people gripe about Aniplex, but at least they treat their product with care and release quality blu-rays.

Very disappointed (there's that word again), really wish that a different company could have gotten their hands on this title after the buildup of so many years (wasn't Funimation trying really hard to get the license? Why oh why could they not have gotten it?!). I'm just going to call it now: the movies end up looking the best, and StarS looks the worst.

You know, I took that Viz survey and listed a flurry of titles I wanted to see them get their hands on, but I take that back. If this is how you treat legitimate concerns of disgruntled customers over an issue YOU are responsible for, then no, Viz, I'd rather not see you touch any other series I care about.
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ZorinBlitz



Joined: 06 Dec 2012
Posts: 85
PostPosted: Fri Nov 14, 2014 1:56 am Reply with quote
Great interview Zac, its great to see that you're not afraid to ask tough questions. Keep it up, one of the best ANNCast's ever! Smile
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luffypirate



Joined: 06 Oct 2006
Posts: 3186
PostPosted: Fri Nov 14, 2014 2:13 am Reply with quote
So the error came in post production or was this just a poor source from the start? I felt as if some of the questions about the quality of the materials they were given were stepped around and not given a full answer. Of course they can't say anything negative as it would without a doubt get back to the licensor but is this really the R2 DVD they are working with or what?? Where did this superior clean OP come from if they are already working with the best available? What the heck is going on here???
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walw6pK4Alo



Joined: 12 Mar 2008
Posts: 9322
PostPosted: Fri Nov 14, 2014 2:24 am Reply with quote
Even if it's a poor source from the start, then YOU HAVE NO BUSINESS MAKING A BLURAY FROM IT.

It'd be like Discotek making a BD for Project A-ko using those old ass masters. Sure they technically could make a BluRay in the physical sense, but the video quality won't be there and it's just a waste of everyone's time insofar as just reading a news article's headline.
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luffypirate



Joined: 06 Oct 2006
Posts: 3186
PostPosted: Fri Nov 14, 2014 2:38 am Reply with quote
I'm not wondering about the BD I'm wondering why nothing resembles the R2s that we thought they got.
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Kosaka



Joined: 01 Jul 2010
Posts: 239
PostPosted: Fri Nov 14, 2014 2:41 am Reply with quote
I was disappointed in the PR spin from Julie McDonald. I wonder if they were trying to use Funimation's most recent DBZ Blu-ray releases as a model, in hopes of widening the appeal, but didn't implement that strategy in this release as well as Funimation had with DBZ.

Still, for Seasons 1 and 2, I expect that the Viz releases will be better than the old and expensive ADV releases which had substandard video, and Season 5 hasn't been released before. I think I won't pre-order Season 3, though, and wait to see how the Viz release compares to the Pioneer/Geneon DVDs.

So either Toei intentionally gave them degraded masters with post-processing already done to the video, which Viz either shouldn't have accepted or shouldn't have made Blu-rays from, or Julie McDonald is lying about the results of Subatomic Digital's post-processing.

Zac, I'm glad you did your video production homework, and didn't let the spin go unchallenged.
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Cptn_Taylor



Joined: 08 Nov 2013
Posts: 925
PostPosted: Fri Nov 14, 2014 3:10 am Reply with quote
walw6pK4Alo wrote:
Even if it's a poor source from the start, then YOU HAVE NO BUSINESS MAKING A BLURAY FROM IT.

It'd be like Discotek making a BD for Project A-ko using those old ass masters. Sure they technically could make a BluRay in the physical sense, but the video quality won't be there and it's just a waste of everyone's time insofar as just reading a news article's headline.


The Japanese are the first to upscale old anime on Blu-ray. Maybe TOEI gave shit masters to VIZ and that's all they had to work with, of course VIZ can't say they were f-k-d over by TOEI. It wouldn't be the first nor the last time a Japanese company treats foreign anime companies with contempt.
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Hikaru Suzuhara



Joined: 31 Dec 2004
Posts: 84
PostPosted: Fri Nov 14, 2014 3:49 am Reply with quote
That was painful to listen to. It's incredibly pathetic listening to her dance around the issue trying to avoid blame. She has the gall to belittle the concerns of buyers and act like they don't matter.

All you have to do is admit you guys fucked up and offer to fix the issues and replace the discs for free, but no of course not. That would be the responsible thing to do.

Learn well for this is how not to do PR on a botched product. Cover your ears and close your eyes like these women and pretend the problems don't exist. Everything that comes out of their mouths is a lie dripping with sweet honey.

Disgusting.
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Cutiebunny



Joined: 18 Apr 2010
Posts: 1746
PostPosted: Fri Nov 14, 2014 4:21 am Reply with quote
roseversailles wrote:
I've spent thousands of dollars on Sailor Moon and was perfectly ready to plop down more for a true collector's dream come true.


Ditto. I own a lot of artwork from this series. I've spent a lot of money on this franchise, more than I'd really care to admit. I had hoped to one day replace my DVDs, but it sounds like it's not worth it right now.

If the problem was with the masters (which, I doubt, since every other country seems to have released a better version than the US), don't hype it so much. Don't label it as being a collector version. Just tell me "There's a new dub". If Viz sold it like that, I don't think as many people would have been disappointed as there are now.
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Maidenoftheredhand



Joined: 21 Jun 2007
Posts: 2632
PostPosted: Fri Nov 14, 2014 6:15 am Reply with quote
Cutiebunny wrote:

If the problem was with the masters (which, I doubt, since every other country seems to have released a better version than the US), don't hype it so much. Don't label it as being a collector version. Just tell me "There's a new dub". If Viz sold it like that, I don't think as many people would have been disappointed as there are now.


Just going to play devil's advocate here but how do we know the US got the same Masters as those other countries. After all the US is in the same region as Japan and there is the whole fear of reverse importation. I can certainly see the US being given worse masters.

Although from what Zac said it doesn't sound like the issues can be caused by a bad Master but by a bad authoring job. It could be both though.

I didn't buy Sailor Moon but I was displeased by the Viz rep's attitude toward admitting there was a problem. The point is a lot of people are unhappy and when you have customers unhappy maybe you should rethink that this release isn't up to par and admit that and try to do something for the customers. I mean not only is Viz releasing more Sailor Moon that people now be more hesitant about, what's to say Viz would do a sub-par job on other releases as well. Their attitude was sort of "I don't care" which is not the type of attitude a company should have.
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DmonHiro





PostPosted: Fri Nov 14, 2014 6:18 am Reply with quote
Wow... this interview was PAINFUL. Zac asked some very good questions, and made very good points, but he was pretty much ignored for most of it. We only got PR-quality answers. They actually expect anyone to believe that the NCOP and NCED came form a DIFFERENT master? But they can't say what that master that is. And what about everyone else who released this on DVD with very good quality, and from the same masters? Where did Italy get these super magical master tapes?
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Ojamajo LimePie



Joined: 09 Nov 2007
Posts: 762
PostPosted: Fri Nov 14, 2014 7:16 am Reply with quote
Maidenoftheredhand wrote:
Just going to play devil's advocate here but how do we know the US got the same Masters as those other countries. After all the US is in the same region as Japan and there is the whole fear of reverse importation. I can certainly see the US being given worse masters.


Why would Toei keep separate sets of 'good' and 'bad' masters around, instead of just one good master set?
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