One of the most common misconceptions about us Brits is that we don’t indulge in displays of emotion. It’s not true – in fact it’s a trait limited only to our gangly, socially-inept ruling classes – you know, the ones we would have eradicated if we’d had a proper revolution – and spread around the world by the constant stream of Jane Austen adaptations we shit out and the inexplicable popularity of ‘stars’ like Hugh Grant. Anyway. I can assure you right now I am displaying emotions – several in fact – but actually the dominate one is so typically British. It’s disappointment.

Some news was circulating this week about about the UK release date for Miyazaki’s Ponyo and frankly, it was such bad news that I had to get it confirmed myself. A quick email to distributors Optimum – who have the license for Ghibli product in the UK, not Disney – triggered this response and my worst fears:

Hi Tim,

Ponyo will be released in cinemas nationwide on February 5th 2010. The DVD will be released in mid June 2010. Whether or not it will be released on Blu-ray is yet to be confirmed.

Many thanks.

Best wishes,

Nice Optimum PR Person

February? And no UK DVD until June next year? Ouch.

Hugely disappointing, especially as us poor Ghibli-loving limeys have been soaking up all the hype about the film and Miyazaki’s appearances in the US. Not that I’m blaming Optimum for this – I have no knowledge of the behind the scenes legal, economic and political dealings that have lead to this decision – plus they have always provided first class products with all their previous Ghibli releases. In fact – unlike Disney – as they have no fear of releasing un-dubbed versions, we actually have had some titles released over here that have yet to surface in the US – Tales of Earthsea and Only Yesterday being two great examples. The flip side is that the ones that Disney do want to honor with a dub seem to be delayed, as though we’re getting the Mouse’s second pickings. Like I say, I can’t claim to know the in and outs of whats happening behind the scenes, but it does leave a somewhat bitter taste in the mouth.

As for the DVD release date, well that just seems like an unfeasibly long way off. Presumably it’ll be out on DVD in the US by year end, and most likely on Bluray too. Either way, it doesn’t seem like a particular helpful delay for an industry trying to fight off internet piracy. I’ve actually got hold of a copy of the Japanese DVD release, but was holding off watching it, hoping that I’d be able to see it at the cinema first. As you can imagine I’m not waiting until February now, so that’s something to do this weekend. Look out next week for a full review.

According to on-line store CD Japan, Miyazaki’s latest Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea is being released on DVD (and VHS, charmingly) on July 3rd, with the DVD also including an English subtitle track. Excellent news for European importers, and those in the US with region-free players.

At the same time a making of DVD is being released, along with a DVD of a concert by Ghibli composer Joe Hisaishi. Confusingly – and annoyingly – both of these are also being released on Blu-ray, although the film itself is not. Shame. Seems Ghibli are still testing the water in regards to the new format, or are concerned that adoption rates are still not high enough outside their hardcore audience in Japan.

So what will it be? Are you going to take the plunge and import a copy? Or wait until the official cinema release and see it with the Disney dub (featuring the likes of Tiny Fey and Matt Damon)? Let me know below. I’ll hopefully be back in Japan at some point this year, so I can see myself being tempted by all three releases…

Thanks to Tobias Lind for the heads up on this one.

UPDATED: Thanks to blauereiter for pointing this out to me – according to Ghibli World Ponyo will be getting a Blu-ray release – but not until December, which is an awful long wait. The article also states that the two BR docs mentioned above will not have English subs, which is highly disappointing. No word on whether the BR of the film will have an English sub track, but I’d be surprised if not. More info when I know.

It’s very hard to underestimate the global impact of Katsuhiro Otomo’s film adaptation of his own, epic manga Akira. It broke box office records when it opened in Japan, and along with Ghibli Oscar winner Spirited Away it is probably the anime film most western ‘non-fans’ have seen. For many of my generation it is a much treasured and personally important film and, without resorting to hyperbole, one that the first viewing of was a life-changing experience, akin to watching Star Wars, 2001 or Blade Runner for the first time.

It didn’t hit the UK until 1991, and I can still vividly remember trekking to a grimy arthouse cinema in East Oxford with a friend – both of us 17 years old at the time, not quite knowing what to expect, but spurred on by a clip we’d seen once on TV, that can have been barely two minutes long. Two minutes of motorbike chases, rioting and cyberpunk Japanese city-scapes. And equally I can remember us both stumbling out afterward into the cool night air, eyes-wide and speechless, Oxford’s crumbling, historic architecture fading into unimportance around us. Sure, we’d seen some snippets of anime before; British TV treating us to Battle of the Planets, Speed Racer and whatever Saturday morning shows it deemed suitable for children, but now our minds were open to the potential of animation to depict realistic worlds, mature narratives and action sequences that Hollywood could only dream of. Things would never be quite the same.

A few months later, I was queuing in my local HMV to buy the limited edition VHS double tape pack – one tape with the subbed version, the other the exclusive Akira Production Report – a precursor of the now ubiquitous DVD extra. Now, 18 years later, I’ve just bought the film for a third time, retiring the DVD to the shelf alongside that original, still treasured VHS boxset. Due to stock problems the Blu-ray still hasn’t surfaced here in the UK, so the question is: was importing it worth the cost of importing it from the US?

As soon as the film’s opening starts, one thing is clear – this is visually the best presentation of Akira you’ve ever seen. I’d go as far to say it even surpasses the cinema presentation that I originally saw in that seedy, run-down theater. Every subsequent viewing has always forced you to spot details you never saw before, but this is taken to a new level with the brilliant transfer to HD. Otomo’s emotive character designs shine, and the detailed background art looks even more exquisite than before. Much has been made of this release’s audio pushing the limits of the BR format, and even without the required cutting edge AV setup to playback the True-HD stream it sounds dazzling. Both Shoji Yamashiro‘s mesmerizing score and the audio effects demand you pump the volume as high as you dare. All said, this is a wonderful package, and a vital purchase not just for anime fans, but anyone wanting to show off the best of what the Blu-ray format can offer.

If i have any reservations at all, it’s about the lack of extras on the disc. The collection of Otomo’s storyboards is a brilliant bonus, granted, but you can’t help but feel it would be better enjoyed in a similar format to his fascinating Steamboy Storyboard Book. And that’s all there is, apparently due to a lack of space due to the enhanced audio. Plus Bandai’s recession-era decision to produce just one disc for all regions has lead to a multitude of language and subtitle tracks being crammed in, undoubtedly not helping the problem. Still, it’s a shame not to see the production report again, plus some new, retrospective featurettes and interviews would have rounded out the package nicely. I can’t shake the sneaking suspicion that another, inevitable two disc release will see the light of day before too long.

In preparation for sitting and watching it again, I recently finished re-reading the original, 2000+ page manga again. It’s always a slight shock when you realise how much of his intricately woven, action filled plot Otomo had to loose to bring the film in at just over two hours; Watchmen fans moaning about the cuts from the recent film adaptation would have a stroke if they saw what was done here. There is enough material to fuel a full 26 episode anime series – something I believe we may see yet, especially as recession facing industry turns to reliable franchises once again. Major, plot shaping characters from the manga – like Lady Miyako and Kaisuke – are reduced to simple, flitting cameos, while others like Chiyoko are never seen at all. But it is Otomo’s story and his adaptation, and he alone understands it’s nuances, and the themes he was originally trying to convey. As a result the film stands alone as a perfect story, captivating the audience for every second of it’s 130 minutes. It is truly, still, a masterpiece, and this new Blu-ray release – while not perfect – is an essential purchase. Whether you’re a die hard fan or a newcomer to anime, pick this up as soon as you can.

Lots going on at the house of Totoro this week – first off is an excellent and insightful interview with Ghibli animator and art director Kosaka Kitaro (Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise, Akira, Spirited Away and Ponyo on a Cliff by the Sea among many, many others) over at Ghibli World. Here’s a tasty extract:

In fact, it is evident how Miyazaki’s films, notwithstanding their highly imaginative stories, tend to present characters which are deeply human in their behavior and sensibility…

I believe that the fantasy elements, which are so evident in the latest Ghibli productions, have a meaning which is deeper than what may superficially appear. That is to say, I do not think that Miyazaki’s stories have to be considered as simple flights from the real world of everyday problems. On the contrary, I think that Ghibli fantasies are a form of criticism of the human intellect. A criticism that works in the way of a negation. The contemporary society is something familiar to us, and we are used to its positive or frightening aspects. Ghibli films allow a critical separation from this context, because they show the world we passively live in from a whole new perspective. For example, we may have lost interest in blades of grass: however, I hope that someone, after having seen blades of grass in a Ghibli film, moving and transfigured by the detailed stylization of the drawings, will find a new pleasure in looking carefully when passing by a real meadow.

Also over at Ghibli World, news that VIZ Media is translating and releasing Miyazaki’s book Shuppatsu Ten 1979-1996 (Starting Point: 1979-1996) in the west. From the site:

Shuppatsu Ten includes about 90 essays, talks, lectures, movie plans and texts that were contributed to various newspapers, magazines and other publications from 1979 to 1996. During the last 13 years of those, his most active period, Miyazaki Hayao established Studio Ghibli and directed & produced 10 masterpiece films: Nausicaa, Laputa, Totoro, Kiki, Only Yesterday, Porco, Pompoko, Whisper and Mononoke. Miyazaki tells many episodes around these films and insider anecdotes on Japan’s animation industry. And… every one of them is interesting.

It’s out in June, to coincide with the Ponyo theatrical launch – GW has more details, along with an interview with VIZ editor Nick Mamatas.

And finally, following on from my recent review of the excellent Kazuo Oga Blu-ray, is news of a further documentary release: Ghibli no Fūkei: Miyazaki Sakuhin ga Kaita Nihon/Miyazaki Sakuhin to Deau Europa no Tabi (Ghibli’s Scenery: The Japan Depicted by Miyazaki’s Works/A Trip of the Europe Encountered in Miyazaki’s Works). According to Anime News Network, it features:

..two television documentaries about the real-life locales that inspired the movies of studio co-founder Hayao Miyazaki. In the 2008 Miyazaki Sakuhin ga Kaita Nihon documentary which ran on the BS NTV satellite channel, actress Mayu Tsuruta visited the Japanese sites of yesteryear that informed the artwork in My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, and Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea.

In 2006′s Miyazaki Sakuhin to Deau Europa no Tabi documentary from the same channel and upcoming home video release, actress Yui Natsukawa (Gedo Senki, Onmyoji) visited Stockholm and Gotland, two locales in Sweden which served as the model for the fictional town of Koriko in Miyazaki’s Kiki’s Delivery Service film. In addition, actor Tetta Sugimoto (Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Mei-chan no Shitsuji) travels to the French region of Alsace to “find” the hometown of the heroine Sophie from Howl’s Moving Castle.

Sounds like yet another essential – though probably expensive – purchase, judging by the quality of the Oga-san BR, and one I might see if I can pick up next time I’m over there. It’s good to see Ghibli taking the format seriously, though still no word on when we can expect releases of their actual back catalog…

Some of you may remember that I picked up several special treats on my visit to the Ghibli Museum in November. Chief among them was the Blu-ray of the Kazuo Oga Exhibition: Ghibli No Eshokunin – The One Who Painted Totoro’s Forest. It was something I’d been planning to grab ever since I knew I’d be visiting the museum, but it wasn’t until this weekend that I finally managed to sit down and watch it. If you’ve ever seen any of the major Ghibli releases, then you’re already familiar with Oga-san’s work and his lovingly hand painted backgrounds that have brought films such as My Neighbour Totoro and Princess Mononoke to life. Quite frankly he is the very best in the business – quite possibly the greatest animation background artist of all time – and this disc, in it’s very elegant and typically Ghibli way, shows you exactly why.

The first pleasant surprise when you slip it into your player is the amount of content on the disc. There are four main features, the first being a 70 minute documentary about Oga himself. Tracking his career from untrained beginnings and pre-Ghibli anime days to the present, it also offers fascinating behind the scenes glimpses into the pre-digital filming and composition production techniques the studio employs, and the effort and painstaking attention to detail they require. It also gives a lot of screen time to the always insightful Isao Takahata, as he talks with affection and respect about working with Oga on Only Yesterday and Pom Poko, but we see the as always reserved Miyazaki only in short clips of archive footage. As with all the features throughout the disk, there are superbly translated and written English subtitles – a gracious nod from Ghibli to it’s small but enthusiastic fan-base in the west – and the film succeeds in not only demonstrating Oga’s enormous talent but in putting a human face to the artist’s work.

The second feature, The charm behind Kazuo Oga’s background art, is a 40 minute documentary comprising mainly of other Ghibli staffers and a Japanese art historian talking of their love of his work, as well as some footage of the exhibition itself. But it’s the third feature that will be of perhaps the most interest to fans and fellow artists – Kazuo Oga’s Techniques is a recording of the man himself painting a complete work, from blank canvas to finished work. Six hours are subtly edited down into 20-odd minutes, and every second is a delight to watch. Essential viewing for all artists, it’s also a fascinating, hypnotic experience for anyone, Ghibli fan or not. From what I understand this is a different recording from the one on the DVD version, a time-lapse version of which is presented below.

Finally, but perhaps most impressively, is the still image gallery collection of all 600 pieces of artwork shown at the exhibition. Presented at Blu-ray resolution, this feature is just incredible, and personally justified the purchase of the disc on it’s own. The image quality is phenomenal, and being able to just sit and watch a high-res sideshow of all these works is mesmerising. I should also point out that the image quality throughout all the features is exceptional – unlike the extras on many BR discs there are no upscales here – everything seems to have been shot in HD, before being subtly and professionally edited. The whole package is a delight to watch, as relaxing and enthralling as it is intelligent and insightful. As the first true Ghibli BR release, it also gives a tantalising glimpse at what the studio can do with the format.

Although it may be a little expensive or tricky to track down, there is a hell of a lot to recommend about this disc. For Ghibli fans, artists and art students it’s essential viewing, and also a fascinating watch for even the most casual fan of animation fan painting. A fitting testament to the work of a truly great artist, and a reminder of the role he has played in making anime one of the most powerful art forms of the last 30 years.

Read more about the DVD and the exhibition over at Vong Yonghow (AKA Blauereiter)’s ever brilliant Halcyon Realms site.

It looks like Bandai have put a lot of time in and money into the imminent Akira Blu-ray, hopefully putting to rest the fears of fans worldwide that it might be yet another quick transfer. According to Blu-ray.com, although the film had a full restoration for it’s 2001 DVD release, no punches have been pulled for it’s 20th anniversary, with the focus being moved onto remastering the score and soundtrack:

It was in the planning stages for bringing AKIRA to Blu-ray, that composer Shoji Yamashiro proposed taking the format to its limits by including a 192khz/24-bit audio track that would allow viewers to experience the full warmth and detail of the original recordings. After much debate, the decision was made to move forward.

Unfortunately, there were no available studios with the ability to master at this level of fidelity, and many of their sound systems could not reliably reproduce the dynamic range of sound that Shoji Yamashiro wanted to bring to the front during the re mastering process. As a result, the soundtrack’s re-mastering was done at Mr. Yamashiro’s own studio, equipped with the best equipment available, and the original analog master tapes were brought out from storage.

Even though AKIRA had major restoration work done for the 2001 DVD release, including a 1080p theatrical quality master, advances in digital restoration and film transfer technologies have increased to the point where a brand new transfer was warranted. As with the audio, a new inter-positive was struck from the original film negative for a new scan into a digital intermediate (DI); the master computer file upon which all of the remastering work was performed.

In fact, the transfer is of such quality that apparently it pushes the BR format to some of it’s technical and storage limits:

Even at a running time of only 124 minutes, AKIRA pushes the boundaries of what can be compressed to a Blu-ray Disc. The root of this challenge lies in the 192khz/24-bit 5.1 track. Uncompressed linear PCM at this resolution needs an astonishing 28 megabits per second (mbps) of transfer rate. To give a point of reference, this is 30% greater than the video bitrate on the well- regarded Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man’s Chest Blu-ray, and 8mbps over the maximum allowable combined audio bitrate in the Blu-ray spec. This of course, doesn’t even account for the original Dolby Surround mix (linear PCM), the English Dub (48khz/16-bit Dolby TrueHD), or the Japanese Dolby Digital tracks. For help, Bandai turned to Dolby, whose TrueHD codec is standard for their releases. The two companies worked together closely to balance the available space on a BD-50 with the needs of both the audio and video tracks. In the end, the combined load of all four audio tracks bump their head against that 20mbps ceiling, never breaking through, while still leaving plenty of room for a high quality video presentation.

Interesting and exciting news. Although worryingly I can’t seem to find a UK website right now that’s taking pre-orders – worrying because the February 24th launch date is just ten days away. In the worse-case-scenario, and a euro release is substantially delayed again, then at lease the US disc is being reported to be region-free. Either way, expect a full report when I get my hands on it.

Special thanks to my good friend Jeb for the tip-off on this one.

(Note: This is the second part of a review of Freedom. The first part can be read here.)

After a release schedule spanning nearly two years, Sunrise and Nissin Cup Noodle’s Freedom Project OVA finally wrapped up in May of last year. Unusually for an anime series, a Blu-ray box-set was released worldwide on 11th November 2008 – coincidentally while I happened to be in Tokyo. Thinking it would be cool to pick one up on launch day in Akihabara, I was pretty shocked when I saw the price – ￥15520, or about $174. Ouch. At first it seems like a perplexing amount for a 7 episode anime box-set, but this is an OVA, where fans had been paying up to ￥ 3162 ($35) for each individual episode. The amount Japanese otaku are often willing to pay for their anime and manga is one of the main cultural differences that separates them from their western counterparts, and it’s a commitment that the industry often depends on in order to produce large scale, high budget projects such as Freedom.

Patiently, I waited. Not only, it turned out, until I got back to the UK (where the box-set is available at a far more reasonable price) but also until Christmas morning, when through the generosity of my partner I finally got my hands on it. The question was, did the final parts live up to the first four I’d reviewed last year?

The second half of Freedom makes a significant shift in focus, not just in the setting, but also subsequently in the shows art style and character development. With Takeru and Biz now stranded on the newly re-discovered Earth the futuristic, artificial environments of Eden give way to the rolling, open planes of America, as the pair make their way to Florida to find the senders of the message Takeru received in the very first episode. As well as allowing the artists to shift to a warmer, more organic palette, it also gives the writers a chance to explore a different side of the characters.

If I had one concern from the first few episodes, it was that the main protagonists seemed to be little more than Akira style archetypes, interested in little more than bikes and girls. But when Takeru and Biz finally reach the remains of Cape Canaveral, the story changes, becoming a coming-of age tale as the two become part of the survivors community, gain new values and fall in love. Together with their new friends they spend a couple of years working in NASA’s Apollo scrapyard to build a rocket that can take them back to the Moon – not just so they can get home, but so they can show Eden that Earth still lives, bring back to Earth vital supplies to stop their new community from starving, and most importantly confront the Lunar authorities that have suppressed the truth from their people for so long. While the ‘teenager becoming an adult’ theme is hardly original in anime, it’s seldom done as well as it is in Freedom, with a witty and punchy script that makes you believe in the enthusiasm and drive of it’s main characters.

Without straying too much into spoiler territory, it’s safe to say that the story doesn’t stay Earth bound for too long. The series’ hour-long finale takes the action back to the moon, giving fans another hit of Otomo’s fantastic mechanical and character designs, as the bike riding teenagers take the battle to Eden’s oppressive leaders. Of particular note are the ‘Octopus’ mecha, immediately reminiscent to hardcore Akira fans of the ‘Care Taker’ robots from the original manga.

Put simply, Freedom Project is excellent. It manages to carry the pace and excitement generated in the first episodes despite the huge shift in setting, while simultaneously adding depth to it’s characters and back-story. With animation and CGI that seems to improve in quality towards the end, it’s hard to not recommend it to a wider audience than the Otomo fanatic to home it initially appealed. The BR box-set is a great buy – nicely put together and presented, with a short manga booklet and some great extras – the highlights of which are the informal, light-hearted interviews with Shuhei Morita (director) Dai Sato (screenwriter/planner). It might seem a little expensive at first, but it’s worth it – and at least you’re not paying those Japanese prices.

(Note: This is the second part of a review of Freedom. The first part can be read here.)

Some of you might remember my concern back in June when I first reported on Production IG’s planned visual update to Oshii’s 1995 classic Ghost in the Shell. Well, the Blu-ray of GiTS 2.0 (not to be confused with GiTS 2: Innocence, which will also be referred to a lot in this piece) hit Japanese stores a few weeks ago, and via sources that I’m not at liberty to identify I have managed to get my hands on a preview copy – months before the (still yet to be confirmed) UK release. So it was that I found myself, on the first morning of 2009, sitting down to watch one of my favourite movies of all time again, but instead of being filled with the usual satisfying feeling of anticipation, I was gripped with something nearer to dread.

The ‘problem’ – if it is really one at all – is the issue of progress. In the nine years between GiTS and GiTS 2: Innocence technology changed. In this time the tech teams at Production IG focused on becoming the masters at seamlessly merging CGI imagery with conventional hand drawn animation, with GiTS 2 being heralded as the pinnacle of this across the industry. And with these new technological changes came aesthetic ones; Oshii switched palettes from green and blue tones to more deep, orange ones, and the computer interfaces and displays that are such an important part of the GiTS environment became more sophisticated and refined as the software used to create them got cheaper, quicker and maturer. And while these displays had been the only thing to be rendered by computer in the first movie, the sequel employed CGI in nearly every scene.

Suddenly, you could run the two movies and – arguably – something didn’t look quite right. At times they looked like different worlds. The computer displays in GiTS started to look outmoded by today’s standards, let alone compared to the future they were meant to predict. Some of the cityscapes looked uninspiring – perhaps – in comparison to the epic computer rendered vistas of GiTS 2. Production IG had hit the same problem Lucas had hit with the Star Wars prequels – when you’re making heavy SFX based science fiction, your work is always going to look dated. Luckily then, that you can now go back and change it…

Before we talk about this anymore, lets have a look at the evidence. By far the biggest section of the film to have been altered is the well known, and often mimicked, opening sequence, with Major Kusanagi leaping off a skyscraper to assassinate a foreign diplomat. I’ve grabbed some images from both versions of the film for comparison.

The first thing you notice is the palette switch, as well as how the old computer maps that open the film have been completely re-designed and rendered.

Then it hits you, every external shot in the sequence – including the Major herself – have been recreated in CGI.

And this is where I first started to have problems with GiTS 2.0. CGI Kusanagi doesn’t look quite right. Well, she looks fine on her own, but inter-cut with the other characters – who are still hand drawn from the orignial – she looks jarring. Almost, at times, like you’re watching two different films.

From here you’re into the ‘cyborg birth’ opening sequence, which has also been completely redone, with much more sophisticated CGI and the same green-to-orange palette change, the again bring it more into line with the companion sequence in GiTS 2.

Later on in the film there’s also some CGI rendered helicopters and vehicles, although luckily the climactic spider tank battle sequence has survived untouched. There’s also a few minor dialogue changes, as well as a female voice actor for the Puppet Master, which makes a bit more visual sense and the plot a little easier to follow. But otherwise the rest of the movie has remained largely untouched.

Sitting writing this after watching GiTS 2.0 for the first time only a few hours ago, I’m still a little undecided as to how I feel about it. One major issue i have is that I always loved the original’s aesthetic, far more than I did it’s sequel’s. The video game style graphics, the green-blue palette…the whole film captured the 80′s cyberpunk vibe of Shirow’s original manga (all be it with a far darker, more serious tone) as well as developing on the themes and aesthetics of works like Bladerunner and Neuromancer that came before it. Don’t get me wrong, I like GiTS 2: Innocence, and I found the new palette that Oshii had brought over from Avalon appealing, but it was a different film to the original, a different world. And I was happy with that – time had passed in the real world, and I was happy to just accept it had passed in the GiTS world too. Things change, especially technology. Characters had clearly aged, so why couldn’t everything else had moved on as well?

Also the beauty of the original film for me was that it didn’t actually rely too much on futuristic design and visual effects to create it’s haunting atmosphere. The best science fiction works because it manipulates the familiar and believable, and what truly makes GiTS a masterpiece is the noir atmosphere, Oshii’s pacing, his slow pans, and the beautifully drawn Tokyo Hong Kong street scenes.

In fact watching it after returning from Tokyo, it’s remarkable how un-futuristic the architecture is in GiTS, with the sequel’s towering CGI mega-scrapers and smoggy vistas starting to look a little Fifth Element in comparison. It’s these things that give the original it’s feeling of edgy, ‘just around the corner’ realism, and if it’s any consolation, all of that is still here in 2.0.

Personally there are still a lot of unanswered questions for me. Why was this made? Is it just another IG tech demo? How much as Oshii actually involved? Wasn’t he busy making Sky Crawlers at the time, and is this really just a marketing exercise for that movie – it having been shown at the same time at some Japanese theaters?

Not that there’s nothing at all to recommend this release. As previously mentioned, the beautiful pacing and gentle street scenes are all still intact, and this is the best they’ve ever been seen. It’s a great transfer, and has clearly been cleaned up in places in the process, and it’s the better for it. Kenji Kawai‘s legendary score has also been given an audibly noticeable remaster, and sounds stunning all over again. I was only given the main feature, but the Japanese collectors release featured not only some interesting looking extras but also a copy of the original – although it’s unsure whether that has been given the same gorgeous visual polish in the transition to Blu-ray. Only time will tell what is included on any western releases.

Only one thing is certain – if you’re a GiTS fan then you can’t kid yourself – you’re going to want to see this. Whether you end up loving it, hating it, or – like me – wondering whether it was really necessary is something still to be determined.

ありがとうございます to The Laughing Man for securing me this review copy. The net is vast and infinite…