Forum - View topicAnswerman - Hangovers from Turkey, Hangovers from Life
|
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3 Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 7580 Location: Wales |
|
|||||
|
The major ongoing complaints about FUNi's picture quality was back before BDs were prevalent and they were still doing dual angle credits on their DVDs. IIRC it improved around the time of Ouran?
|
||||||
|
||||||
omiya
 Posts: 1833 Location: Adelaide, South Australia |
|
|||||
|
Only western star that I remember in a Japanese advertisement on my last trip was George Clooney.
|
||||||
|
||||||
leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
|
|||||
Not to mention that agents, it seems get rather uppity if their actors are asked to do something humiliating. At the very least, the one I used to work nearby, I'd often overhear him turning down roles even if they paid well because he was afraid the actors would embarrass themselves. It took a bunch of talking between George Clooney and his agent to get to voice a (non-talking) dog in an episode of South Park (Clooney asked for it himself, but his agent refused), then a bunch of talking between Clooney's agent and Comedy Central's casting team for him to be given a one-line cameo in South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut. Maybe that's why I associate Nicolas Cage with doing more embarrassing roles than other actors (Wicker Men, for one), as he is his own agent.
But American family films get put onto streaming services posthaste. The family now gathers around Hulu and Netflix. (And Redbox, to a lesser extent.) Besides, I think watching it in Japanese with subtitles is more associated among the American mainstream, at least with Ghibli, with film buffs than otaku, as it'd be no different than watching The Bicycle Thief or Run Lola Run in their original languages with subtitles.
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bob Sapp (a retired wrestler) have done enough commercials that I used to look for them on YouTube and made playlists of them. Most of them have been taken down, unfortunately. That being said, Arnold did like five different commercials for Arinamin V, so it accounts for a bunch of them. I didn't see many for Tommy Lee Jones, so I'm guessing they were already getting purged off of YouTube by the time I searched for bizarre Japanese commercials featuring western celebrities. |
||||||
|
||||||
Animerican14
 Posts: 963 Location: Saint Louis, MO |
|
|||||
Darn, would Sentai really not think of re-doing the authoring quality of Penguindrum's release?  Sentai eventually does a "complete series" release of their two-cour anime anyway, don't they? I've never had any experience buying a two season/one set from them before or since, and I'm not familiar with any other recent two-cour anime releases from them.... might they change the video quality for that? There's also the possibility that they may go down a special edition route like they've done for HOTD recently. If they do release such a set, then, might they offer a better-looking version?
Also, just how much of the onus was on Sentai re: Penguindrum's video quality anyway? Might Star Child Records having been a Japanese corporate partner for it impacted the quality of the western release for the worse? Bodacious Space Pirates was another Star Child-affiliated property, and both halves of that series, released in roughly the same timeframe as Penguindrum, also apparently suffered pretty bad in its video quality, if I'm not mistaken. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
Ingraman
Posts: 1077 |
|
|||||
I have vague memories of reading posts from elsewhere (FandomPost?) that seemed to indicate that BSPirates was re-authored for its complete collection release, rather than ADV just reusing the original discs. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
chronoclast
Posts: 97 |
|
|||||
|
Sentai have done re-releases of Bodacious Space Pirates and Fate/Stay Night that were re-authored and are 1080p instead of 1080i. I would assume the video problems were fixed but no screenshots have turned up anywhere yet. It's possible the IVTC could have been screwed up too so I would like to see proof.
Penguindrum hasn't been re-released yet but they'll very likely re-author and IVTC it when they do. Viz's Moribito BDs aren't much better than Media Blasters'. I believe the goobers at Subatomic Digital authored Viz's BDs of it, which is the same company responsible for the Sailor Moon remaster train wreck. They didn't IVTC it correctly so it has ghosting and the compression job is poor. The only improvement in video over Media Blasters' is that it doesn't completely shit out during high motion scenes, it's just moderate artifacts throughout. It's a shame Justin wasn't able to author the BDs for Viz, I think we would have gotten much nicer discs. Maybe five years from now a third company could give it a shot? Related to the first question Justin, how exactly were the overscan bars removed for the Jin-Roh BD coming up that you worked on? Some folks have been wondering about that. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
Gilles Poitras
Posts: 476 Location: Oakland California |
|
|||||
|
On the "safe zone" from old CRT TV sets and watching the show on a recent TV.
In a scene in one of the episodes of City Hunter you can actually see where the background painting stopped outside the safe zone. You actually see brush strokes and the unpainted surface at the bottom. Kinda cool. |
||||||
|
||||||
Mr. sickVisionz
 Posts: 2173 |
|
|||||
I think the real conclusion to draw is that the premier of western celebrities not doing commercials is just a flat out false one that never existed. Celebrities have been doing commercials and endorsements since celebrity culture about in the early days of Hollywood. I don't know where Justin or the person asking the question got that idea from that this is abnormal behavior. |
||||||
|
||||||
Kadmos1
 Posts: 13566 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
|
|||||
|
Another obvious reason that you won't often be seeing American actors doing commercials like the type that you might see in Japan is because they might be asking for a huge amount of money to appear in said commercial.
|
||||||
|
||||||
Touma
 Posts: 2651 Location: Colorado, USA |
|
|||||
The way that the question was asked did exclude endorsements for products that are associated with the celebrities. I have not watched television regularly for many years, and therefore do not see television commercials. Are celebrities doing commercials that are not endorsements on TV in the US? A long, long time ago, when I was very young, I think that I saw big celebrities doing commercials. John Wayne was selling cigarettes if I remember correctly. But I do not remember seeing anything like that in the last few decades. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
|
|||||
|
The trend nowadays is for celebrities to show up on commercials without any mention of who they are and only passing references to themselves at best.
For instance, there is currently a series of AT&T commercials where customers come in to ask questions to a store associate, and these customers are always celebrities of some sort. I don't recognize them all, but they're written in a way that you won't really get it unless you're familiar with that celebrity. The one with Gordon Ramsay as the customer, to use one example, just has him behaving like a normal customer, with the punchline being that he'll start throwing things if his phone service gets frustrating. There is no indication onscreen or in dialogue of his name or that he's a chef (and he's dressed in plainclothes, not his signature chef outfit). If you're not familiar with him, all you'd get out of him is that he is a middle-aged British man with anger problems. Another example from several years back is Juicy Drop Pops, a lollipop with a tiny squeeze bottle with sour syrup inside. In the commercial, Tony Hawk rides up to a boy, talks about how awesome Juicy Drop Pops are, consumes one in front of him, freaks out, and gives another one to the boy, who also freaks out. Tony Hawk only talks about the candy and never about himself, and the only onscreen text in the entire commercial is the Juicy Drop Pops logo--the viewer is expected to already know who he is. Otherwise, you just have celebrity actors who play a role in a commercial like they would a TV show or a movie and nothing more (such as a commercial for a product I forgot, probably Jell-O or Rice Krispies, where Molly Shannon simply played a mother spending quality time with her children--no dialogue, no jokes) or the celebrity IS indicated but he or she just talks about the product and does something simple (like Shaquille O'Neal talking about Gold Bond and doing a happy dance). The big difference is that celebrities in American commercials rarely, if ever, do any of the humiliating slapstick comedy common in Japanese commercials. They either blend in with the crowd or are the top dog in the commercial. (As I mentioned above, I'd bet this is because their agents forbid them to have any such roles in commercials.) |
||||||
|
||||||
|
configspace
Posts: 3717 |
|
|||||
And those are very recent releases, it's not done when BD authoring was new. I've already shared my frustrations with Sentai in a brief private email with Justin, asking similar questions as Cesar here. What worries me is are these f--kups for early pressings and then subsequent silent fixes. I still buy nearly all their blu-rays, but I've stopped buying them early and just wait for sales. However, the problem is we don't know which pressings we're going to get. Here's my own comparison screenshot for Sentai's The Book of Bantorra released May 13 2014, highlighting the banding http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/102162/picture:1 Most people probably won't notice, but their practice of cramming episodes and/or turning up the brightness really exacerbates the banding already present in the Japanese BDs. It's a similar issue with what Mirri pointed for Funi's Lain. However I think Funi's BDs as of late are good, and a lot less problematic than Sentai's. It seems like the Italian encoders are actually the best from what I read. They can even be better than the JP BDs as in the case of PMMM. |
||||||
|
||||||
Tenchi
 Posts: 4471 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
|
|||||
Eh, I've always liked going to stores. Some of us simply prefer perusing merchandise in person. For anime and manga specifically, I have a local retailer (The Comic Book Shoppe's Anime Stop sub-store on Clyde in Nepean) and I'd rather support it than send my money elsewhere. Also, I'm a Hot Wheels collector and I enjoy the thrill of the hunt, looking for Treasure Hunt cars at Toys R' Us and Walmart and looking for vintage cars at Value Village thrift stores. I do now have a debit card for online purchases but I very rarely use it. I will grant that Black Friday isn't as big a deal here in Canada, though, since our Thanksgiving is on a Monday in October. I wouldn't get up early for a door-crasher special even if it was an insane price on something I really wanted. The only notable Black Friday purchase I made was A Centaur's Life volume 4, since Anime Stop was offering 20% off all manga. (I was hoping to get that huge Celebration of Haruhi Suzumiya manga anthology omnibus at a discount, because the regular price is something like $28 Canadian, but they didn't have it in stock.) |
||||||
|
||||||
Razzuel
 Posts: 164 |
|
|||||
|
The only recent release I can think of that has been "busted" is Sailor Moon, but Funimation, Sentai, and Viz are still putting out releases with flaws. They don't ruin the experience, like say in Sailor Moon's case, but they're still there and it quite bothers me. I'm still buying from Funimation, but I've stopped buying Sentai and Viz releases.
Funimation: Psycho Pass has some issues where the video becomes blocky, looking like a crappy YouTube stream. The opening and ending in Good Luck girl has framerate issues. Fujiko has missing subtitles. Plus, there's all the normal Funimation problems like banding and brightness. Sentai: Sentai constantly has all kinds of issues, including releases this year. Missing audio, missing subtitles, video problems. Viz: Their 1080i shows, Gargantia, and Sailor Moon. They're not "busted" except for Sailor Moon, but these problems show a lack of care, respect, and professionalism. Maybe I'm ruining the experience for myself, but for me personally, I can't support these releases. I don't care if it's my favorite show. I really love Watamote, but I'm not buying Sentai's releases. I'll either do without or buy the Japanese release down the line. I want these companies to do better, and buying their flawed releases won't send that message. The best I can do is point out their mistakes, not buy their releases, and hope someday someone figures it out. I feel like NISA, Aniplex, and Discotek are the only companies I can trust to put out a quality Blu-ray. Yeah, what does it matter anyway, when we're all just gonna die in the end, but I don't know. I have principles and I don't want to just throw those away. Even if I did buy them, it'd still frustrate me when running across an issue. |
||||||
|
||||||
Themaster20000
 Posts: 863 |
|
|||||
|
^You could just buy used if you don't want to support them. I personally don't get anal over small little issues(the Sailor Moon flaws I could understand).
|
||||||
|
||||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group