UK Anime Distributor Crunchyroll/Funimation/Manga UK Discussion Thread

Re: [UK Anime Distributor] Manga Ent/Animatsu Discussion Thr

I have no idea what this film is and manga having WW rights means I'm passing on it.

A reply to such… err… message is never too late.
Passing on a film just because you hate animatsu is, imo, not a smart move. Especially when the film is an adaptation of an award-winning manga. This is Ghibli-tier ****, believe it or not. Way above the works of Shinkai, Hara and the likes.

Fumiyo Kōno is not any ordinary author. She is really praised in Japan but she's unknown to the western audience because of her unconventional art style (nobody is tired of that ******* generic and ugly artstyle on most manga~animes?). Give a shot to Country of Cherry Blossoms before taking a decision about skipping this film.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0867196653https://www.amazon.com/dp/0867196653
It's a true masterpiece, really worth the purchase.
(and scans are for pussies)
 
Passing on a film just because you hate animatsu is, imo, not a smart move.

Welcome to Anime, where companies are treated as either your best friend or your worst enemy and products are purchased due to the obligation to support your favorite team...er I mean company rather than on the merits of the show/film/manga itself.
 
To be fair, people may well have reasons to consider the company offering a release before deciding if they want to acquire that release. There could be practical considerations, such as a company having a poor/unreliable history of quality control on their releases. There may also be more personal (but still valid) cosiderations, such as the company generally only offering basic releases without additional features or tending to offer expensive fancy releases with no affordable "content only" option.

Even if the individual product in question appeals to them, people may still hesitate to buy from a company that they feel operates in a way they don't agree with.
 
To be fair, people may well have reasons to consider the company offering a release before deciding if they want to acquire that release. There could be practical considerations, such as a company having a poor/unreliable history of quality control on their releases. There may also be more personal (but still valid) cosiderations, such as the company generally only offering basic releases without additional features or tending to offer expensive fancy releases with no affordable "content only" option.

Even if the individual product in question appeals to them, people may still hesitate to buy from a company that they feel operates in a way they don't agree with.

I was thinking the exact same thing. Many people also won't blind buy titles, and Animatsu's theatrical releases, whilst great, aren't universal, and they don't like streaming things. So there might not be an option for these people outside of blind buying.
 
I was thinking the exact same thing. Many people also won't blind buy titles, and Animatsu's theatrical releases, whilst great, aren't universal, and they don't like streaming things. So there might not be an option for these people outside of blind buying.

Oddly enough I pretty much blind-buy everything....
 
A few question about the upcoming Pokémon steelbook.
I allready own them on VHS and DVD, but I'm not sure its worth trippledipping :cool:
-Will it include the uncut porolouge/beginning to the first movie?
-Will it include Japanese audio?

Ok, I don't expect Japanese audio, for some reason not a single Pokémon product I own released outside Japan has that. But it would be nice.
 
A few question about the upcoming Pokémon steelbook.
I allready own them on VHS and DVD, but I'm not sure its worth trippledipping :cool:
-Will it include the uncut porolouge/beginning to the first movie?
-Will it include Japanese audio?

Ok, I don't expect Japanese audio, for some reason not a single Pokémon product I own released outside Japan has that. But it would be nice.
There's no uncut prologue, movies 1 and 2 will be the same as prior releases in the west, except for having a new credits overlay. Movie 3 will use CG for some of the shots that were originally traditionally animated in the old Warner Brothers release, and there'll be a new credits overlay. As per the US and AUS releases, there are no Pikachu shorts included.

There'll definitely be no Japanese audio, but Manga haven't yet said if it'll be the AUS masters which feature 5.1 english audio for two of the movies, or the US masters which are all in stereo.

It's still worth picking up for the HD transfers and steelbook though. I have the AUS standard BD release and I'll be picking up Manga's steelbook.
 
There's no uncut prologue, movies 1 and 2 will be the same as prior releases in the west, except for having a new credits overlay. Movie 3 will use CG for some of the shots that were originally traditionally animated in the old Warner Brothers release, and there'll be a new credits overlay. As per the US and AUS releases, there are no Pikachu shorts included.
No prolouge? Thats a shame. I allready own it on the American DVD release of the Mewtwo returns OVA, but it should be aviable with the movie its supposed to be a part of. Guess we start with Mewtwo blowing up the lab, which means moste of the viewers don't get to see whats in my opinion is the moste interesting part of the movie, Amber.
I personally don't care much for the Pikachu shorts, but there is probally somebody out there who would like to watch them again.


There'll definitely be no Japanese audio, but Manga haven't yet said if it'll be the AUS masters which feature 5.1 english audio for two of the movies, or the US masters which are all in stereo.
Guess either TPCI denies everyone to do so, or everyone don't thinks its worth it, or they are just too lazy.
I hope it will be the Australian masters then.


It's still worth picking up for the HD transfers and steelbook though. I have the AUS standard BD release and I'll be picking up Manga's steelbook.
Will probally pick it up for the third movie.
Thanks for the info
 
For anybody curious, Manga has confirmed their Digimon releases will be PAL.

Yes, apparently, that's still a thing.... :rolleyes:

Right, can someone explain this to me? I keep seeing this and I'm confused;

As far as I know, UK = PAL and US = NTSC. I don't get if/whether there's any difference other than what region DVD/Blu-Ray player they can be played on. If a DVD boxset is coming out in the UK, why would it NOT be PAL?

I can't think off the top of my head but I've seen a few other posts recently talking about how PAL format is problematic; why? Is this a recent thing? Or if not, since when should it even matter?
 
Right, can someone explain this to me? I keep seeing this and I'm confused;

As far as I know, UK = PAL and US = NTSC. I don't get if/whether there's any difference other than what region DVD/Blu-Ray player they can be played on. If a DVD boxset is coming out in the UK, why would it NOT be PAL?

I can't think off the top of my head but I've seen a few other posts recently talking about how PAL format is problematic; why? Is this a recent thing? Or if not, since when should it even matter?

Most UK DVDs are NTSC now. Not even sure why PAL is a thing, but essentially PAL has more Frames Per Second, so is slightly faster than NTSC, meaning the show itself is slightly sped up, causing voices to sound high pitched and making everything in general just sound off. I'm no expert, so someone can probably explain it better, but that's the gist of it, I think.
 
Anime in SD format used to be native NTSC, 30fps 480 lines of resolution. Since HD came along, it's become 24fps, with varying degrees of HD, but translating to 1080p on Blu-ray. 24fps is relatively easy to encode as 30fps NTSC, and it can be encoded progressively, so Blu-ray players and progressive DVD players can convert it back to 24fps.

Here's the thing. PAL is 576 lines of resolution at 25fps. An old NTSC show at 30fps has to go through standards conversion, scaling up to 576 lines for one thing, and averaging out the frame rate to 25fps. There's a whole lot of ghosting, blended frames, and judder and softness. It rarely looks good, although sometimes it can almost be as good as NTSC.

The newer, HD shows can also go through that standards conversion from the NTSC DVD masters, but it's easier to get the HD master at 24fps, downscale it to fit 576i (the image remains sharp), and just speed playback up to a smooth 25fps. The show runs 4% shorter, but there's no ghosting or blended frames. The downside to this is that it also speeds up the audio, making it higher pitched. Some companies try pitch correction to get it back to normal, but it's easy to get that wrong and introduce distortion.

It's far easier and better to just release DVDs as native NTSC, as all players and TVs in the UK these days can handle the format. You're really only screwed if your TV's made of wood, and the only connector is an aerial socket. Most anime on DVD the last couple of years in the UK has been NTSC, which makes the Digimon announcement disappointing.
 
Oh so a DVD can be NTSC/PAL without necesserily being R1 or 2? I didn't know that, if I saw on the back of a DVD that it said NTSC I would just automatically assume it was region locked to R1. I wasn't aware of any technicalities, I just always assumed there were different formats in different regions haha, thanks for clearing it up :)
 
To add, we have PAL in the UK and Europe and Australia because of our electricity. Old TVs with electron guns and cathode ray tubes worked by scanning the screen with the guns, lighting up the phosphors. This was linked into the rate that AC electricity alternates at, 50Hz. An electron gun would scan the screen twice for each frame, filling in alternate lines for each field which would blend into one frame. This would be timed to 50Hz, 50 fields equals 25 frames. The AC in the US, Japan and Japan is 60Hz, so their TVs scan 60 fields, 30 frames per second, tied into their electricity frequency. That's where PAL and NTSC comes from. That's old TVs of course, and means nothing with modern tech able to display mutiple formats.
 
Regarding the earlier discussion about the Pokémon movie releases, it would be impossible to clear a dual language release purely due to music licensing issues - in fact, 4Kids' dub of the first three Pokémon movies featured scores completely different to the original Japanese release (it was likely cheaper to produce original material than license the existing soundtrack).

While this practice wasn't as extreme in later 4Kids-dubbed movies or when the franchise changed hands to The Pokémon Company International, it does still rear its head now and then, with occasional BGM tracks being swapped out with original pieces in western releases. Extended versions, remixes and instrumentals of theme songs are the most prolific targets nowadays - and there's typically always a segment in a movie where something to that effect plays.

Then there's the obvious issues with the edited nature of the English dub. For example, with Pokémon 3: The Movie, the order of scenes during the credits was actually shuffled around for the English release to reflect the differences in audience behaviour in Japan and America. There's a rather detailed comparison of these changes on Dogasu's Backpack.
 
For anybody curious, Manga has confirmed their Digimon releases will be PAL.

Yes, apparently, that's still a thing.... :rolleyes:
Wait, is that including Tri?

Regarding the earlier discussion about the Pokémon movie releases, it would be impossible to clear a dual language release purely due to music licensing issues - in fact, 4Kids' dub of the first three Pokémon movies featured scores completely different to the original Japanese release (it was likely cheaper to produce original material than license the existing soundtrack).
For what it's worth Mewtwo Strikes back syncs up perfectly, they even went back and dubbed the prolouge bit for the japanese DVD release which had both tracks IIRC.
 
Going to ask here. Does anyone know if Manga will be releasing Hellsing Ultimate 9&10, or will AL do it with their new funimation deal, or should I just grab the Madman version since this will bug me not having it complete.
 
Back
Top