Your anime viewing journal

Amon81 said:
I just wish I'd of made it to see it back in 1995 so I could of compared the two versions, no question this version would of blown the 90's version out the water due to the higher quality picture.
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I'm not going to argue with your love for GitS, it's a love I share, but wouldn't it have looked much the same? I imagine it would have been 35mm projection back then since it was before the advent of digital.
 
Yes and no. Yes as 1080p is pretty much equal to 35mm when shown on the big screen so it should be close, but being digital, its is super sharp restored picture, which I can see being better than the 35mm prints we got here as we quite often didn't get as good as Japan until really the HD days started. Just look at some of the restored blurays compared to even the restored dvds from a few years ago, night and day as its pretty much 1:1 of the cells now.

I also don't know what bitrates for audio they were using in the 90's on the big screen, but I wouldn't be surprised if the audio is higher on the digital version.

Some of the companies in the mid 2000's did some really sub par dvds, I remember being annoyed when I got the official dvd of Devilman OVA's, it looked worse than the vhs it was replacing and was dub only, ironically I did a bit of research after and found one particular bootleg is way way better, I got it as I thought why not it couldn't be worse and it only cost me £5 off ebay and was in Japanese, subtitled (which I was after in the first place) and soo much sharper. I really do hope someone like Discotek release the bluray of it as the rips online look amazing in 1080p (I'm so getting Goku Midnight Eye when it comes out later in the year by them).

One quite jarring one I saw at the cinema was back in 2010 at Sci-Fi London, they showed Eden of the East TV series on bluray and then The Cat Reaturns on dvd. That was a huge drop in quality. Not only just because of the big drop of resolution, but it really showed how bitrates really improve motion, especially in animation, you really see the blocky lower bitrate pixellation off the dvd on the big screen.
 
Dance in the Vampire Bund-Episodes 11 and 12 (Complete)

Well, this was pretty good. The last third had more of the action I was wanting out of the earlier episodes, so that was a positive. I'll be honest, if this wasn't a Shaft show, I don't think I'd have liked it quite as much, their visual style does a lot for me. If it was any other studio, it'd be a 7/10 probably, but Shaft elevates it to an 8.
 
Amon81 said:
Yes and no. Yes as 1080p is pretty much equal to 35mm when shown on the big screen so it should be close, but being digital, its is super sharp restored picture, which I can see being better than the 35mm prints we got here as we quite often didn't get as good as Japan until really the HD days started. Just look at some of the restored blurays compared to even the restored dvds from a few years ago, night and day as its pretty much 1:1 of the cells now.
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35mm is usually the best source available (though I don't know what the '90s print was like so I can't really comment with any authority) - Even 1080p doesn't really come close to a good 35mm, though 4k gets very close. I'm not really sure what cinemas are using these days but I'm so used to watching things on fairly small, high resolution monitors so nothing ever looks very sharp to me in the cinema because of the difference in pixel density. Glad you enjoyed it so much though, I would still like to have seen GitS on the big screen and it sounds like a great experience.

Amon81 said:
I also don't know what bitrates for audio they were using in the 90's on the big screen, but I wouldn't be surprised if the audio is higher on the digital version.
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I have to admit I never really notice audio improvements very much, so you're probably right about that. I only have stereo sound available at home and in my local cinema the speakers don't seem to have the best range (when I went to watch Rogue One a second time recently it was far too damn quiet) and something about how a lot of audio tracks are mixed for theatrical release really doesn't sit right with my ears - The music and effects always seem to drown out dialogue which always sounds muffled as hell to me. I usually feel the desire to reach for a remote and turn the audio to clear speech mode.
 
Sunshineabove said:
Witch Craft Works - ep1-2 (REWATCH) never finished it and going to finish it now
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FOR THE LOVE OF VAULTING! WHY NOT!!!

Your a new member so I'll let it slide since your planning on Re-watching it, I couldn't highly tier this show enough for Tanpopo-chan alone. There's more to it then that, and some parts I felt disgruntled with, but it's certainly an enjoyable show. Clever how they marketed their singles and album OST.

For myself I just checked a bit of ep1. Interview with Monster Girls aka Demi-chan: that FUNi did a dub of.
yeah other than Takahashi they pretty much didn't do it for me.

Just noticed Hikari has a similar surname. Think theres a pun there?
 
Descending Stories Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju ep 1 - 3
Acca 13 Territory Inspection Dept ep 3
Hand Shakers ep 3
Trickster ep 15
Masamune-kun's Revenge ep 4
All Out ep 16
 
HAL

I'll be totally honest, I didn't really have a lot of interest in this film and the only reason I own a copy is via AL's Mystery Box. However, with me picking what anime to watch with a randomiser, I ended up watching this tonight, and it was pretty good, but not without it's faults.

First things first, this is a brilliant looking film. Only anime I've seen from Wit before, to my knowledge anyway, is Attack on Titan, and whilst the art style here is very different from that, obviously, it still looks every bit as nice, if not better, most likely benefiting from a higher budget. The rather unique structure the film has is another point in its favour. At first, I was rather annoyed and somewhat dumbfounded that the film's first scene being Hal's death. Knowing the premise of the film from the back of the box, I thought we'd at least get to spend time with him first to establish the relationship that was in place before Hal's death. However, it turned out to be quite a good move, as I really liked the way we found out about Hal slowly from the other characters and from camera footage.

The romance between the two leads was quite sweet, but I found it to be lacking any emotional resonance, at least not with me anyway, and I think a lot of that may be down to the female lead Kurumi, whose entire character is pretty much defined with her relationship to Hal, as we don't really know much else about her, other than she likes sewing. I also thought turn the story takes at the end could have been handled better, and it was a little vague what was happening, specifically is the Hal we've been following is human, and if so how/why did he choose to get his memory wiped and replaced with that of a robot? If the Kerumi was a robot intended to make the human Hal feel better, why not just have a robot Kurumi visit Hal's house like Hal did to who he thought was the human Kurumi? It just needed a solid explanation rather than vague visuals.

Despite some issues, at only an hour long, I'd still recommend people check this one out, especially if it's just been sitting on a copy from the Mystery Box.
 
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Sitting at home with a stinking cold so doing a catchup from the last couple of weeks.
Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid 2-3
ACCA 3
Blue Exorcist Kyoto 3
Marginal 4 2-3
eIdlive 3
Minami Kamakura Cycling Club 3-4
Showa Genrou Descending 3
March comes in like a lion 14
All Out 15-16
Yowamushi Pedal New Generation 3
 
IncendiaryLemon said:
HAL
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IncendiaryLemon said:
I also thought turn the story takes at the end could have been handled better, and it was a little vague what was happening, specifically is the Hal we've been following is human, and if so how/why did he choose to get his memory wiped and replaced with that of a robot? If the Kerumi was a robot intended to make the human Hal feel better, why not just have a robot Kurumi visit Hal's house like Hal did to who he thought was the human Kurumi? It just needed a solid explanation rather than vague visuals.
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I think the idea is that Hal (who was human all along) had suffered a breakdown after the death of Kurumi and had basically mentally shut down by taking on a false persona of an emotionless robot and blocking his memories. The reason they send Hal to pretend to be a robot and support (actual robot) Kurumi is so that it will fit in with his fantasy but gradually expose him to the truth and help him to recover. Since he believed he was a robot, he wouldn't have felt he needed support so it wouldn't have worked the other way around. Technically, they are using robot Kurumi to support the real Hal, she becomes what he needs to work through his own pain. You'd think that losing Kurumi a second time might be bad for Hal but I suppose it makes him respond emotionally and actually deal with the loss and he's probably mostly responding to the original loss (he'd have known deep down that the Kurumi we see isn't real).

I think it's fair to say that the explanation isn't perfect, the film probably tries a little too hard to be vague and I'm not sure it was necessary. A few of the things that you only learn at the end of the film could have been made clear at the start and I don't think it'd undermine the point of the film at all (it might even make it more effective). I suppose it does add some mystery and it means the second viewing is a different experience, so maybe there's some value to it (even if it doesn't work for everyone).
 
Smeelia said:
I think the idea is that Hal (who was human all along) had suffered a breakdown after the death of Kurumi and had basically mentally shut down by taking on a false persona of an emotionless robot and blocking his memories. The reason they send Hal to pretend to be a robot and support (actual robot) Kurumi is so that it will fit in with his fantasy but gradually expose him to the truth and help him to recover. Since he believed he was a robot, he wouldn't have felt he needed support so it wouldn't have worked the other way around. Technically, they are using robot Kurumi to support the real Hal, she becomes what he needs to work through his own pain. You'd think that losing Kurumi a second time might be bad for Hal but I suppose it makes him respond emotionally and actually deal with the loss and he's probably mostly responding to the original loss (he'd have known deep down that the Kurumi we see isn't real).

I think it's fair to say that the explanation isn't perfect, the film probably tries a little too hard to be vague and I'm not sure it was necessary. A few of the things that you only learn at the end of the film could have been made clear at the start and I don't think it'd undermine the point of the film at all (it might even make it more effective). I suppose it does add some mystery and it means the second viewing is a different experience, so maybe there's some value to it (even if it doesn't work for everyone).
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Yeah, that explanation lines up with what I was thinking, although I did think that Hal thinking he was a robot was a little bit weird. Like, why a robot specifically? It just seems odd. Anyway, as we agree, it was all a little bit too vague,
 
Acca ep3

Something that has amused me about the show so far is how, each time I think the plot is headed in a particular direction, it goes off and does something else instead. I guess you could call it capricious?
 
IncendiaryLemon said:
Yeah, that explanation lines up with what I was thinking, although I did think that Hal thinking he was a robot was a little bit weird. Like, why a robot specifically? It just seems odd. Anyway, as we agree, it was all a little bit too vague,
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I'd guess because robots represented emotionless beings to him and if he was a robot then he wouldn't have to worry about all those annoying feelings. I think he did have some experience with robots in his life, so that may have made him more inclined to think of them that way (I think they were involved in one of his flashbacks, though it's been a while since I last saw the film). I suppose the main reason is so that the story could work as intended but I think they at least tried to justify it (though it may be another case of being too vague for their own good).
 
The Case of Hana and Alice / Hana to Alice Satsujin Jiken

I quite enjoyed this one, I guess it appeals to my tastes with it's focus on characters and slice of life type stories. I've posted more thoughts in the ratings thread.
 
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