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Since Justin Sevakis is credited as the video engineer for this release, would that mean he is the one responsible for cranking up the brightness?

I don't have permission to speak on behalf of NIS, so I won't comment other than to say that I stand by my (freelance) work.

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Kudos must be given not only to Jun Mochizuki for his original drawings,

It should be:

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Jun Mochizuki for her original drawings.

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Viewers do eventually get to learn snippets about the characters' pasts, but it's purely expository. Unfortunately, knowing who belongs to which family isn't quite the same as understanding what drives their actions and fuels their inner turmoil.

This is done, later, in the second half there is Break's back story, and some information about Jack, Gilbert, Vincent, Intention of the Abyss and Alice too.

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Even when the characters do get to a point in which some catharsis might be reached, one of the other characters comes through with a cheap joke to ruin the moment.

I agree that some jokes do not fit, but I still think FMA: Brotherhood is a lot worse in this regard.

jsevakis wrote:

I don't have permission to speak on behalf of NIS, so I won't comment other than to say that I stand by my (freelance) work.

Fair enough. Thank you for an honest answer.

I'm very surprised to see Justin's name attached to this as video engineer, since there is something very wrong with the video, as the review notes.

There's lots of grain, which in digital animation only happens when it's purposely added. And that's fine - it's an artistic choice. It's part of how the animation was produced, and it shouldn't be messed with. Lot's of people don't get that and want grain removed, but trying to remove it only results in a smeared mess.

But the brightness/levels on this release are just way off. It's much, much brighter than either the broadcast or R2 DVDs, and looks very washed out/blown out in comparison, and that in turn makes the grain effect stand out all the more. Frankly, it looks bad.

After the way they did fix the problems with Toradora and Persona, I was hoping that would be the last of video problems from NISA, but apparently not. They've already responded to complaints with a "The film grain effect in PandoraHearts was added by the creators and is intentional in order to give the graphics more texture and depth." It may be true that the grain is supposed to be there, but the grain isn't the issue at all. The brightness/levels are just seriously fucked up. That they have no intention of fixing it is disappointing, though not surprising. Toradora/Persona type replacement programs can't be cheap. But trying to obfuscate the issue and sweep it under the rug is not a good reponse to see.

I'm looking forwards to buying Wagnaria/Working next March. I sincerely hope any issues NISA may have with video encoding are ironed out by then.

You know, usually, I completely agree with the reviews on this site, but I couldn't disagree more with this one. I LOVED this series. The music, the characters, the action sequences (used sparingly to great effect), and everything. One of the things I loved is that it DIDN'T try to keep the suspense going throughout an entire story arc. So many shows have one good idea that they try to stretch over 26 episodes, but this one introduced a mystery, cleared it up in a few episodes, and got on with the story. I seriously wish more series did that.

I kind of looked at this series and saw it as a feminine FMA. As far as I'm concerned, it is fantastic, and I really hope that a second season is made.

I've seen a few people say lately that the show wasn't doing much in the first half so I checked on Wikipedia and I'm guessing that the first part ends when the first major arc starts. I know that doesn't excuse a show for taking so long to get going but, thinking back on it, all the little details you mentioned in the show do turn out to be really important later (in the manga anyway, the end of the anime does some serious diverging at that point).
And, from what I've heard about the film grain, it wasn't there in the original broadcast (heck, I've still got a few screenshots from the show and they don't look amazing but certainly not grainy and I've seen some HD AMVs that don't look grainy in the slightest), got added in the R2 release and then made brighter in the R1 release to counteract it and that's why it's so obvious. Frankly I'd love to know what the Japanese were thinking here, grain=/= artsy people! The real beauty of film is that, used right, it still produces a clearer image than what most digital cameras do, not obscure the picture with extra large bits of silver.

wandering-dreamer wrote:

And, from what I've heard about the film grain, it wasn't there in the original broadcast (heck, I've still got a few screenshots from the show and they don't look amazing but certainly not grainy and I've seen some HD AMVs that don't look grainy in the slightest)

The grain was likely always there. The relatively low bitrates of broadcast TV combined with the further compression done for fansubs is usually enough to obliterate the better part of most grain/noise effects. As for HD, the "HD" broadcasts were upscales, and it would not be unusual for further blurring to have happened there. For better or worse, the grain present on the R2s is likely what it was always supposed to look like. Cranking up the brightness just made it worse.

C for story and A for animation? Rolling Eyes

You give Xebec too much credit. The grain wasn't from NIS at all - Xebec added it themselves (most likely to mask the poor quality of the TV version).

I'd personally swap those. Pandora Hearts is one of the most intricate ongoing manga. It's like Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, but done right.

Gaaaah so much i disagree on. But what ever. Doesnt change the fact that the manga is indeed way better. :/

I'm probably going to end up buying this despite the problems, reason being: I want to support anime releases that are targeted towards women.

I'm not happy with the reports of video problems, graininess, and contrast. Nor am I happy about the awkward packaging, and the price, which is very high considering there is no dub (I'm not a dub-only purist, either). That being said, people love to discredit female-targeted shows as non-sellers, so I feel compelled to show love for them regardless of the other problems. The extras sound nice, but I wish releases like this wouldn't automatically shoot themselves in the foot, and be counted as non-sellers due to built-in problems that don't even have anything to do with the show itself. Blurgh. Sad

tuxedocat wrote:

I'm probably going to end up buying this despite the problems, reason being: I want to support anime releases that are targeted towards women.

...uh... what? Pandora Hearts is a shounen series...granted, it ran in a magazine with a higher-than-average female readership, but I don't think the creators would describe this as "targeted towards women."

I love this series, and so I don't really agree with Bamboo's negative points on it (except for the grain), but it's a good review nonetheless. Pandora Hearts is definitely a good series, and I look forward to getting the second half, which is definitely better than the first.

As for the grain, it looks like the original animators screwed up by putting way too much grain in the video (why oh why do people think that grain improves video - especially when you use more than a little), and the NIS screwed up by turning the brightness up too high, so it appears to be a joint effort to make the video quality poor. It doesn't help NIS though that this comes not long after their problems with Toradora and Persona. But given how the original animators are also partly at fault, I'm not sure how much this really says about the likely video quality of their future releases (aside from what's likely to happen with the second half of Pandora Hearts).

As always, the NIS packaging looks fantastic but is unweildy. I'm quite divided on it really. It looks great, and its depth allows them to put nice-sized images on the sides, but the overall result isn't exactly shelf friendly. So, I like it, and I don't like it. However, it appears to be what NIS has decided on as their normal packaging. So, unless they get a lot of complaints about it, they're probably going to continue to package all their series that way.

Now, if only Yen Press would release the manga faster...

Is there a reason ANN doesn't include screenshots in their reviews? It seems like more and more reviews mention video problems, but it's hard to illustrate that without any pictures. I mean, even the season previews have screenshots, so why not the reviews, where people would actually be potentially putting money towards the show?

vashfanatic wrote:

tuxedocat wrote:

I'm probably going to end up buying this despite the problems, reason being: I want to support anime releases that are targeted towards women.

...uh... what? Pandora Hearts is a shounen series...granted, it ran in a magazine with a higher-than-average female readership, but I don't think the creators would describe this as "targeted towards women."

Yeah, right. Just like Black Butler.

edited to add: My understanding is that shounen publications include series that are targeted toward female audiences. Pandora Hearts is one of those series. But you knew that, right?

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