That is sweet! Gaogaigar given time will be oop and I'm considering this year buying titles like this as I'll regret it once they are oop. Streaming's already taken over and I'm not quite sure what's keeping physical afloat. But you picked a classic. I just received Hokuto no Ken (the TV series) on blu-ray for the first time. I've never owned it in it's entirety. Very grateful to have these classic titles. Glad you posted too
ranmafan
as I was just showing my wife this site which you may also be interested in:
characterdesignreferences.com
That’s one big reason I went ahead and picked it up quickly. Just have a feeling it will go oop faster than other titles. I’m still regretting not getting Ideon and Xabungle when I had the chance. There’s a ton of the classic mech series that I still have on my buy list that I fear could be in the same boat. Hopefully I can get those soon too soonish but Urusei Yatsura will come first for anime purchases this year.That is sweet! Gaogaigar given time will be oop and I'm considering this year buying titles like this as I'll regret it once they are oop. Streaming's already taken over and I'm not quite sure what's keeping physical afloat. But you picked a classic. I just received Hokuto no Ken (the TV series) on blu-ray for the first time. I've never owned it in it's entirety. Very grateful to have these classic titles. Glad you posted too
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I regret not getting Ideon too. At the time I first starting increasing my retro anime collection from 2012 - 2016 ; I bought Discotek titles in bulk for very little. I figured Ideon and some other titles would just remain in print as I was not aware of how blu-ray was becoming less and streaming more. I do feel that's one factor in the reason print numbers are likley lower and it costs a fortune for Discotek to get these from licensing to a printed release.
Missing out on Ideon did sting quite a bit. Even more so when there was word from the company releasing it on Reddit that the show was not OOP at all and thus would return, but that was like two years ago and there's been nothing in terms of an update. A shame, I'm ready to buy it the second it returns, if it does. Gunbuster is certainly a title I plan on not missing around this time for sure.
I missed some at the time 'in print' titles which I'm kicking myself for not picking up. For instance the "You're Under Arrest OVA and TV series" or one I complain about missing every other 5 pages in the thread...Maison Ikkoku the series. I never bought those when VIZ released on DVD. Went back to buy them in about 2017 and saw one season going for about $120 and the latter two seasons almost never available at all. I never picked up any and we'll have to see if it ever come out on blu-ray.
I really hope something good happens with Maison Ikkoku in the future. It deserves to be brought back. Always wanted that on a newer format.
I mean, it appears Maison Ikkoku was given a blu-ray release back in 2017...in JP. They look a little expense but if you pass by these, you should pick them up. What bothers me is Warner clearly approved these releases and yet didn't bother to release in North America / Europe (that I'm aware of).
In the past before I had kids, I would’ve considered getting Maison Ikkoku’s Japanese release but the prices are just way too much for me to spend on an anime release now a days. It was a big reason I had kinda dropped out of anime for a while. The prices, the region issues, difficulties buying disks from America at the time, and honestly bullying from former places of employment here I got from coworkers about my anime interests.
What's availability like for multi-region blu-ray/DVD players out there. I found 2 of them here and am able to play a number of titles from different regions. In Mexico, they're mostly using Region 4 which won't play in a traditional Region 1 DVD player. I did notice that some Discotek blu-rays (most) have Region A only which is odd. Sounds like you did find some gems those regardless. Price stopped me in recent years. In the late 2000's, many of the anime titles seemed to level out in price. However, that price increase started as soon as the older publishers in North America started either liquidated or otherwise.
Many things would be great had CG not replaced traditional animation. I would even prefer stop motion claymation to the CG we have now. Was this a story that was written recently?
I imagine so it's since a dual anniversary project. I get that Lupin has been pretty busy lately with part 6, 0, etc. so something had to give somewhere but it's such a fun ride that would have benefited a lot from not having a bunch of expressionless dolls jerking around.
I never saw Kodocha. Is that something I'd regret not buying when the physical market for video eventually collapses? Likewise looking for Urusei Yatsura updates. Almost seems like they mentioned it being a steelbook release.
Kodocha is one of the divine treasures as far my circle of friends go. I absolutely adore it and still have my extra fancy fansub VHS tapes sitting around.
Even though I have the bluray I still have only seen as far as the original Kodocha fan sub group did it (going to binge this as soon as I can) and it’s a hilarious show. One of those late 90s gems. I hear it loses its appeal after a while but I’m still a fan.
I miss seeing media in this thread. Now, I've never seen an episode of Kodocha. Never saw many things from the 90's although I did buy something 90's recently which I may like or regret. I checked our Mexico Amazon and it's there at a pretty good price. But, I need to be sold first. Keep in mind, I watch my anime with my wife. I've shown her certain anime which bored her. She's watching Hokuto no Ken TV for the first time and really enjoys it. Then again, she's a huge Bruce Lee fan, Stallone fan (he does resemble Stallone). She the media. If RetroCrush had clips on it, please post.
I had no idea about the changes so I'm glad it was too pricey to pick up. I'd have been really pissed to waste all that money.
Yeah I remember when it came out no one knew until reviews came out that word of the missing audio was revealed. There was a claim that it was mentioned at some convention before release but I never was able to find such info back then. I remember so many people were frustrated by it and ended up not picking up the series including myself. I can deal with the change in opening and ending themes but never removing audio from the show itself. Of course I blame Johnnys for this. They are so crazy about these things to the point they get tv guide covers censored on Amazon japan if there are any of their idols on the cover. Also sucks as one of my favorite themes, Inu Yasha’s “Change the world” isn’t even available on the streams of the show in Japan. Like before I can deal with that, but it’s annoying.
So, who botched the audio? Was it from the JP source or was it Funimation? Speaking in past tense.
I never buy anything incomplete. I was looking at the expensive oop "You're Under Arrest" boxsets. There were only two and then there's Ghost Sweep Mikami. I wanted those and I think they're complete but can't tell. It's not worth the possible loss. Hoping both are not in some kind of licensing limbo and can get picked up by Discotek.
I know where you can find some of that stuff that's censored but won't post here. Who are Johnnys? Sorry for being naive on that.
Johnny’s Entertainment aka Johnny & Associates are Japans biggest boy idol band company. They basically have almost a complete monopoly on the market and have had for decades. All the big names over the years, SMAP, v6, Tokio, etc. when you see a Japanese boy band, it’s almost certainly a part of that company.
That's quite a story there. I'm well aware that in most countries that any movie using an original recording from a pop artist has to pay millions to get the rights to distribution. Glad Discotek was able to release this in it's original format. Hiding the Tokio member by screwing with the subs sounds like how they changed the subs in Angel Cop (the last episode) to make it seem like they were angry at "American Corporations." When in reality they were assuming no one spoke Japanese and wouldn't catch the fact that the actual dialogue was demonizing "Jewish bankers" as the ones who threated global collapse.
I'm really out of touch. Looks like he passed away back on the 13th. Still a great loss but looking at the greats...they're all getting up there in age. He accomplished an incredible amount in his active years. Galaxy Express 999 and Captain Harlock are my two favorite Matsumoto series. The Cockpit's another great one he wrote along with Kawajiri (who directed the OVA).
Wow! Thanks for sharing. Feel free to upload some screenshot comparisons of this to the AnimeEigo release. I'm eager to see how it all turned out.
So the day has finally arrived! I’ve been waiting for this set for ages and thankfully I was able to get it early again thanks to Discotek releasing early at certain places. And with just a quick look through it’s nice to see the quality as expected with Discotek releases is there in force. And having the animeigo subs is a big plus.
Still amazes me that they can cram 54 episode into such a small package and for a small price. I still remember the days of getting the videos from animeigo for insane prices, as well as the first dvd set through preorder from them way back in 2000. Glad to see the series back. And another step closer to completing my blu ray collection conversion.
Now I just need to start a big marathon of watching all my shows I’ve obtained lately. Thinking of doing a weekly one episode per series anime night like my old college anime club days. Would be nice to recreate that old atmosphere again.
I’ll try and find my animeigo disks and try to get some pictures posted. I think I have at least one of my disks in Japan that I brought with me. I wanna also try to compare with the disks and the official streams in Japan to see if anything is missing. Seemed like one episode might be missing an eye catch but the official stream of that episode cut out the next episode preview too unlike the disks so maybe I’m just misremembering. Or maybe just each version is slightly different. Also I know from the ranma sets that the Japanese master videos had some changes made to them when reordering the episode numbers so it’s no biggie.
Unless I'm not mistaken, if you at the first image from the DVDs -- you'll notice the cropping. The color tone was a much lesser saturation and the DVDs were clearly never formatted to 16:9. You'll notice in the below image Lum's knees. They're completely cropped out of the DVD version but looks like Discotek worked from the negatives to produce the blu-ray. I'm really surprised this happened. I thought that Urusei Yatsura had simply been abandoned after it's brief DVD release. I'll commend the fact that AnimeEigo typically worked with Japanese dialogue releases and had better subtitling. However, nearly every early anime release from the early 2000's was cropped. The blu-ray we have to appreciate that it will be the last great physical release available on the N.A. market.So as promised here is a couple of pics I took of the uy dvd and bluray. The old animeigo dvd has the pause logo on the screen the discotek blu ray does not (extra note, i may have made a mistake in the framing on the dvd due to my cheap region 1 player which may explain why its zoomed in a little at the bottom but I’m not sure):
Sorry I couldn’t take direct pictures and had to use my phone. But as you can see it’s a remarkable improvement in quality. Even more so when you look at it in person. Oh and if you are wondering why I picked this scene, well I actually have the cel from this scene although mine is a few frames after which I couldn’t get to pause quite right sadly. (Mainly cause my region 1 player is a cheap region free machine that just barely works).
Also good news I was indeed mistaken regarding a missing eye catch. Nothing is missing from the release thankfully. Overall from what I’ve watched another fantastic Discotek release, one truly worthy for one of the GOATs of the anime world.
ranmafan
for taking the time to sync the scenes and give this comparison too. Enjoy the set and store in a high & dry place. I only discovered recently that blu-ray is susceptible to disc rot. Although I'm not clear how it happens. I've mentioned this in the thread before but my Kimagure Orange Road TV blu-ray set from Discotek was sold to me with a dead disc 4. The forth disc had nothing cosmetic in terms of scratches and it was determined to be disc rot (every practical method to remove it was tried as it leaves me with an incomplete set and I had to download the episodes from that disc to compensate...)
Yeah, that was nice when local stores had an anime section on VHS. I never rented but I bought plenty of tapes when those places started going out of business in the early 2000's. That was bliss given you'd get a subbed VHS in shrink wrap for $10. Sounds expensive but DVD didn't ramp up with retro anime until like 2002.
Go. They will not show it in theaters again in our lifetime. It's worth the train or traffic and inflated ticket prices. Anyone can buy the blu-ray but showing a retro title on the big screen is rare (unless it's something Ghibli)
Normally I would seriously consider it but with all the other expenses and other plans for big events I want to go to in Japan this year with the family, it’s going to have to be a pass. But that’s ok, I’ll have other great things to go to. I’ll still thankfully be able to enjoy it on my nice huge oled. Also got a very nice half price discount at my western anime release import store on it that made me very happy.
Family first and now that Japan is more lenient on those not so long past COVID restrictions; there'd have to be a lot to see.
Yeah finally after so long things are getting better here with the restrictions and events are all back to normal, for the most part. Still upset about losing out on going to the Olympics which was my life long dream. Finally get tickets and have them taken away just two weeks before the event. 40 years of waiting to go and then that. Sigh.
Restrictions messed up many cool things but it had to happen. I had a chance to see Alien '79 Director's cut in a top notch cinema in April 2020; all that was cancelled...anyway but to the topic.
Going to be enjoying TotK more to be honest given how long it'll run. I'd set aside GunBuster so you have good time to watch it specially in one run. My local store still hasn't listed it and it may take them some month. I've been checking weekly though.
Colored though or he'd be grey like Toki.
