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The Other Jason
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Registration Date: 11-08-2010
Posts: 325
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Hi all,
It’s official! Gatchaman II is coming on Blu-ray in Japan. It will be released as Number 93 in TC Entertainment’s ongoing “reasonably-priced” Anime Library of Memories line. Their product page.
All 52 episodes will be released on a mere two discs, which should be fine since they'll be on roomy BD-50s. The collection will be remastered into HD from original series negatives. The set will include new box art by Ippei Kuri and a reference booklet.
But the big question... The aspect ratio for the set is listed at 1.78:1 on Amazon Japan and the compatible 16:9 on TC Entertainment’s own site. It should be 1.33:1 (or 4:3), the old standard screen size.
UPDATE: Tatsunokofan owns the Gowapper 5 Blu-ray sets from this line and reports that although listed as 16:9 on the box, the picture is displayed at its correct 4:3 original aspect ratio. It is "pillar boxed" with black bars on the sides of the image. All should be fine with the Gatchaman II release.
There will be no English subtitles, although the release will be playable on North American Blu-ray players with no problem.
Gatchaman II and Gatchaman Fighter usually go hand-in-hand, so expect to see that announced shortly as well. Who knows, with new HD remasters, maybe Sentai will be able to eventually release the series on Blu-ray here in the US!
Release Date: September 28, 2018
Specs: 52 episodes, two discs, approximately 1300 minutes
Special Features: Clean opening and closing credit sequences, new Gatchaman II series trailer
Price: ¥ 30240 (about ($275.06 USD)
¥22,474 on Amazon Japan (about $204.43 USD)
By: TC Entertainment (Best Field Inc.)
Catalogue Number: BFTD-0275
The Other Jason
www.battleoftheplanets.info
This post has been edited 8 time(s), it was last edited by The Other Jason on 25-06-2018 at 03:49.
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23-06-2018 22:00
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The Other Jason
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Registration Date: 11-08-2010
Posts: 325
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Hi Redbird,
| quote: | Originally posted by Redbird
| quote: | Originally posted by The Other Jason
More soon, I 'm sure. I want to get a look at these to see if they're a significant bump up in quality over the DVDs. I'm also pretty positive the announcement for a Gatchaman Fighter will be on the near horizon. |
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Jason (or anyone! LOL), did you ever manage to see the quality of the blu-ray transfer? Am just curious if you think we will ever see Gatchaman II or F on BR here in the States. |
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Since you asked, here's an edit of a review I wrote for another outlet. Plus... frame grabs!
It took almost a year to find a used copy of the Gatchaman II Blu-ray set for a price I was willing to pay. Japan has all manner of attractive CD, DVD and Blu-ray releases, but their media prices are still way out of line. Back in the old days, I was willing to drop a lot of money on expensive LaserDisc sets, especially when they were the only way to see these series. But now? Gatchaman II has been released in its entirety on DVD several times in Japan and once here in the US. I guess I simply don't feel the need to spend over $250 on a home video release any more. Even with the tantalizing promise of the series looking a lot better. So I waited and a friend in Japan found it for a little over a quarter of retail. Still expensive, but at least I didn't feel the hurt quite as badly.
Where were we? Oh yeah, a review... As shown earlier, the packaging features new cover art by Ippei Kuri and full-color disc artwork. The 28 page reference booklet has a full-color cover and black and white interior. It includes synopses and a frame grab from each episode, in addition to promotional artwork and storyboard pages from the opening credits.
The episodes are remastered in HD from the original negatives and are included on a mere two discs. That raised alarms with me as I was concerned about them being over-compressed. But both discs are roomy BD-50s which allow for plenty of space. Over compression of the image doesn't appear to be an issue. They also use a single version of the credits - the second version that first appeared in episode 32 - "G-1, Love in the Andes." It plays via seamless branching, so the file only appears once on each disc. That move ended up freeing up nearly 80 minutes of space.
Video for the episodes is "pillar-boxed" with black bars at the sides of the picture. The episodes are presented in their correct 4:3 aspect ratio. The picture is not artificially zoomed nor cropped, thank goodness.
I'm also happy to report the video is stable and top-notch. When the original Gatchaman appeared on Blu-ray, the difference between its remastering and any previous home video releases was staggering. That is not quite the case with these II Blu-ray remasters, since the II series was always more colorful and consistent from episode-to-episode (and newer as well). Certainly II does look a lot better on Blu-ray, though. No question. I noticed a decent amount of film grain that was never present on previous home video releases. I'm glad to see it, since it doesn't look like there is any artificial edge enhancement or other digital manipulation done to "goose" the picture. I believe the DVDs may have had edge enhancement done to make them appear more crisp. Because of that the Blu-ray images may not appear to be as sharp, but they look a lot more natural. The color looks more saturated than earlier releases. I'd say the overall picture quality is a few ticks better than seen elsewhere.
Two are two things to address regarding the video. One which I have always brought up with II (and Fighter). The ever-present editing marks in nearly every single cut between scenes are still there, and still rather distracting. Those are unfortunate by-products of editing methods for 16mm film. Without frame zooming or very time consuming digital editing, we're stuck with them.
Second is another thing I was hoping would be fixed with the HD remasters; the credits. The burnt-in credits for II always looked hot and mushy. I hoped going back to the masters would have toned them down a bit and made them sharper. But there isn't much of an upgrade unfortunately.
There are no subtitles on the set. However, the discs are viewable on standard North American Blu-ray players.
Gatchaman II and Gatchaman Fighter usually go hand-in-hand, and if Best Field wants to get Fighter out around a year later, I'd expect a release announcement imminently. They're missing a number in their current catalogue and I hope its being reserved for Fighter.
With new HD remasters, Sentai Filmworks may very well be able to re-release the series in North America on Blu-ray. I'm sure they'd love a chance to do a mega set with everything in a single box.
Here are a few frame grab comparisons. The DVD is first in each case, followed by its Blu-ray counterpart. I have done no color correction, contrast adjustment nor any other manipulation to any of the images. Let me know if you have any questions. Hopefully the sizes are okay. I didn't want to make them gigantic, nor too small to compare.
The Other Jason
www.battleoftheplanets.info
This post has been edited 3 time(s), it was last edited by The Other Jason on 23-09-2019 at 07:17.
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23-09-2019 02:00
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The Other Jason
Boardie
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Registration Date: 11-08-2010
Posts: 325
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Hi Redbird,
| quote: | Originally posted by Redbird
Jason, thank you so much for the in depth response! 
Yes, when Sentai released the DVD/Blu-Ray sets a few years ago, I did pick up the BR one. As you said the difference is amazing!
Would love to see II & F eventually ON BR here, but I guess we'll see!
Japanese DVD/BR's ARE very expensive (been there, done that -but no so much anymore! LOL)
Looking at your pictures, I think that the BR's look better than the DVD's (not as much as the remastered original series - but hey...). I don't know how much they can actually clean everything up (am not that informed when it comes to such thing), but I know at times the medium it was originally made in, can limit such things (plus degradation, etc) - plus I'm sure it's an expensive task. |
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No problem, I hope the look into the differences helped. I should have mentioned all of these comparisons were done with Sentai's US DVD release. I haven't gotten the Japanese DVDs out to compare yet. If I can do it soon, I'll be sure to pop some more images up here.
In the meantime, I took a closer look at something else that bothered me in the US releases... I thought the image looked slightly compressed side-to-side (you can even see it in the black bars at the sides of the above DVD frame grabs, where there should be picture information). Now that I've taken some time to compare them against the Blu-rays, it looks like this is definitely the case (rather then the Blu-ray image being compressed top-to-bottom). I took a DVD frame and increased its top-to-bottom size to a matching Blu-ray picture. I can't seem to post rollover images on the message board, so to see what I'm talking about, please take a look at the comparison here (Blu-ray is the base image, DVD is shown on mouseover):
http://www.battleoftheplanets.info/bddvdcomp.html
Quite a difference, no? You can also see the differences in details and coloring between the two releases a bit easier this way. None of this is amazing information, but I thought it was interesting.
I'm glad to have this better version of II, and I really hope Sentai investigates the possibility of re-releasing it here. Time will tell, but I'm sure an HD release of Fighter in Japan would help matters.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
The Other Jason
www.battleoftheplanets.info
This post has been edited 2 time(s), it was last edited by The Other Jason on 24-09-2019 at 03:52.
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24-09-2019 03:45
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Playing darts with the Condor's feather shuriken...