Forum - View topicBuried Treasure - Venus Wars
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 9902 Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC |
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Here are some screencaps of R3TW DVD from Proware. A pity that it was in 4:3 LB rather than anamorphic widescreen, which was criticized by some of Proware's customers.
All pictures were captured in BMP using CyberLink PowerDVD then converted with FastStone Photo Resizer with 85% quality (default) and no resizing. Titiel screen / root menu Chapter selection, page 1 Chapter selection, page 2 Subtitle on/off Prologue Movie title Music Director: Joe Hisaishi Cute reporter Hiro being chased by an automated police car So START I is still in progress when mankind has already colonized Venus... 
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GATSU
Posts: 15305 |
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I'm not sure the Michael Bay comparison is appropriate, given that it would require Bay to be able to come up with original concepts. Also, calling it an Akira-wannabe is dumb, since the manga precedes the movie, and the talent involved had a history of doing sci-fi long before Otomo. While I don't remember Venus Wars very well, I do remember it being less action-oriented and more journey-oriented than its brethren of the time, and that probably makes it even more of a dinosaur, since they don't take those kinds of chances on genre shows nowadays. Plus they probably borrowed some of the ideas and art for Macross II.
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jsevakis
Former ANN Editor in Chief
 Posts: 1684 Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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Well, clearly they only had an old transfer to work with. (Lots of noise and chroma noise.) It does look quite a bit better than CPM's disc (the blacks aren't compressed into the ground, the color isn't oversaturated, and no PAL artifacts), but still not great. It's rare that an international anime licensor gets the rights (not to mention the budget) to retransfer the film, but they could have at least denoised this transfer and gotten better results. I see quite a bit of macroblocking and mosquito noise. It's also from a different transfer from CPM's DVD (CPM got a credit-free transfer), but it looks about the same quality as CPM's original master. So, if CPM's disc is about a 3, I'd give this a 5.5. 
Maybe someday we'll get a nice restored R2 or Blu-Ray. (sigh) |
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danth78
Posts: 27 |
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Thanks for giving props to Venus Wars! It's severely underrated for some reason. Since when does anime get so much flak for not being Hemingway? Venus Wars had incredibly amazing animation and downright gorgeous character and mecha art, and that's why I watch anime. As for the story and characterization, it's better than average, that's for sure. I agree with GATSU that accusing Venus Wars of copying Akira doesn't make much sense. So they both feature motorcycles. This was the eighties, man!
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rocklobster
 Posts: 200 Location: Planet Claire |
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Rats! IT's out of print! This needs to be re-released pronto! I enjoyed it when Sci-fi channel ran it.
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor
Posts: 9902 Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC |
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Well, it was not marketed as a "remaster" anyway. I didn't capture the Shochiku title screen at the very beginning of the movie; it was very shaky and with lots of noise, which looked terrible. 
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TokyoGetter
 Posts: 416 Location: CA. You can tell by the low moral standards. |
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Rocklobster: is it out of print?
Growing up, I loved nothing more than 1980s sci-fi anime. Crusher Joe, Zeta Gundam, Venus Wars, VOTOMS, Patlabor, Macross... the more the merrier. Alas, while I waited years for a stateside release from some of those other series, Venus Wars was available pretty early on. It didn't have the big rep, but it was a full feature and it had a cool box, so I jumped at it. Did I like it? Well, I bought it... three times. 
The DVD reproduction problem is really regrettable, because it's a GORGEOUSLY rich film. I think a good description of the color scheme would be 'a salute to burnt sienna and other orange earth tones.' Also, it should be noted that in addition to being a fine mangaka and character designer, Yaz could REALLY direct. VW is very filmic... great pans, tracking shots, awesome action direction, and good interaction with backgrounds. He also depicts the vast, death-like landscapes of Venus with great skill. I'll even go so far as to break the 'classic anime guy' party-line and say that the live-action backgrounds were a ballsy and not necessarily ill-conceived experiment, although they may not be the most stunning visual acheivement. Plus, there's LOTS of good old-fashioned CRAP BLOWING UP! Man, I really am a fanboy for this one. No wonder I own a Crusher Joe cell.
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Lowlife187
 Posts: 156 Location: New Macross City |
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I saw "Venus Wars" in the Featured section and I said, "Ah, Venus Wars" and what is the first line of the article?! "Ah, Venus Wars" lol, that was great.
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The Unknown 24
Posts: 112 |
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When I first read about Venus Wars, it was in the Animag magazine (that was published in the late 80's) in 1989. I still have the issue on my book shelf.
A few years later I bought the vhs (English subbed) tape of it. I still have the tape today and recently copied it with my dvd recorder to dvd-r for my person video archives. Most of my vhs collection I'm slowly copying to dvd-r. I thought Venus Wars was a really good story. It would have been nice to see it made into a tv show.  
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michellebaby
Posts: 5 |
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Okay, I just had to make an account to post on this lovely jem called venus Wars. I used to work for Suncoast and we had this dvd instock along with Vampire hunter D, Project Ako1: love&robots, Blue vs Grey and of course being the fan of some classic anime I couldnt resist to buy
 . I of course used to watch the SciFi anime block back in the day (I see SciFi is trying to get back to their anime roots after so many yrs an its just not the same ) but yeah my first anime motion picture movie i saw on that channel was Venus Wars and I think that and watching Project Ako had a huge impact on my love for anime.
I think the animation for its pretty good considering its THAT old and I love the cocepts for the vehicle and mech stuff. Im not really into war or politcal type animes but watching this is not a snoozer at. all. because you primarily are focused more on the characters and the life of the people living on venus etc. For me the characters themselves wasnt really anoyying as much as dub english voices. Hiro is your badass loner angsty character (cant get enough of them) and anybody can relate to his rebellious attitude (not to mention he's a cutey Susan Summers was annoying in the begining but you can see how the war and the lost of will changed her in the end. I wished miranda had more scenes because she was just kickass.  and also the music? I LOVE THE MUSIC. especially the tune at the very end when Hiro is going back to the camp to find Maggie. I also agree tho, that the real video footage in the background of the animation didn't quite mesh well but eh lol I see a few anime nowadays still trying go that route even though it fails miserbly 
But yeah overall its a great anime and its definitly not that old dated looking to give it a look through. I think there was even a manga out for it also? I haven't seen it anywhere but if anyone knows let me know
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Sam Murai
 Posts: 1051 |
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It is really great to see Venus Wars get covered in Buried Treasure. I agree with much of what was said, as I thought that the movie set itself apart from many of the other war-themed anime by showing it in a more personal and up-close manner. The seemingly more-improbable parts of it (motor unicycles, the live-action experimentation, the use of racers in warfare) were actually well-integrated and worked in the context of the story. I thought that the English dub was pretty good though, and I did have to snicker at the "very subtle" name the reporter had (truly a sign of the times...).
Yoshikazu Yasuhiko did a magnificent job directing Venus Wars, given that he is predominantly a character designer and mangaka. You really get to see the full set of his craft in play as he sculpted the world and told a well-rounded tale around it. Having seen two episodes of his Giant Gorg series, you can see his distinctive artistic flair and emphasis on characterization there as well, and like Venus Wars, the cast is mostly a Western one (I imagine he must have stayed in the U.S. at some point in his life). As for the gay character in the movie (who seemed to be in it for slight comic relief), it should also be noted that Yas also directed the OAV adaptation of the first yaoi manga. I've tried to obtain an unused copy of Venus Wars for a while now ever since trying to hold off on buying due to other matters (even at its cheap price of $8 or $9), but I haven't been able to get one despite visiting a number of online retailers (it appeared to have gone out-of-print around November or December of last year). Hopefully Manga/Starz Media or some other company will pick it up. As for Yas, it would be great to see what he could do with a Gundam anime while at the helm or even directing another new story. |
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