UY, MI & Ranma coming out on Blu-Ray

[Dave Baranyi]

Today, pretty much by accident, I found out that Urusei Yatsura is being re-
released as 4 Blu-Ray box sets over the next year. Set number 1, containing
episodes 1-69, was released today. It is going for Y28425 at Amazon Japan. It
appears that a souviner t-shirt will also be included. (The odds of that t-shirt
fitting me are likely very, very small... LOL)

So, being the UY fan that I am I immediately ordered the first box set and pre-
ordered the other 3 sets which will come out at the end of July and the end of
November of this year, and at the end of March in 2014.

BTW ďż˝ Box sets of Ranma 1/2 and Maison Ikkoku are also being released during the
same period, but I'm not a fan of either of those series so I won't be ordering
them.

Getting the first box set will be a big relief for me ďż˝ I've got those early
episodes on old Animeigo VHS tapes, and lord knows if I have a working VHS
player left.

So in a week I ought to be able to see the early episodes of UY in all of their
Blu-Ray glory, whatever that happens to be. <L>

Dave Baranyi

[cosmos...@yahoo.com]

On Mar 26, 4:41 pm, Dave Baranyi <anthony.bara...@bell.net> wrote:

> So in a week I ought to be able to see the early episodes of UY in all of their
> Blu-Ray glory, whatever that happens to be. <L>

The quality should be pretty nice: shows like UY were shot on 16mm
film, so the HD telecine should be able to extract detail from the
original prints which nobody other than the original producers would
have seen since the 80s.

[Dave Baranyi]

It depends upon the quality of what they have to work with. For example, the
DVDs in the box set of "Stop! Hibari-kun" were generally quite good, but
there were some places where the producers of the set did warn the customers
that the quality wasn't up to spec, but that was the best they could find.

I'm really looking forward to some of the middle-years UY episodes where
there was an amazing amount of colour and detail, even in the LDs that I
have. (And yes, I have no qualms about replacing my LDs because my LD player
is getting harder and harder to keep in good operating condition - many
parts are no longer available, and there is a very good speciality repair
shop in TO that does miracles with old tech.)

Dave Baranyi

[cosmos...@yahoo.com]

If you have the UY LD50 box, and ever feel like getting rid off it,
I'm in the market for one :) - it's the largest laserdisc box set ever
released and I simply must have a copy of it. I have actually found a
seller in Japan with several LD50s in stock, for very cheap, but they
only ship by EMS which is daunting for something that weighs 27kg.

I actually have six LD players, ranging from a 30 year old "tube
laser" LD-660 to a top of the line Pioneer CLD-98, so I should be good
for a while, but keeping LD players working these days is tricky. The
analog nature of LD players requires an alignment procedure with a
test disc and oscilloscope for optimum performance and, while Pioneer
still has many parts on hand, eventually the only parts will be had
from cannibalizing other decks. The cheap price of anime LDs has
hooked me though, so maybe I'll hoard a few more players. The only
really expensive anime LD is the elusive Daicon disc, which still
brings many $100's when it surfaces on Yahoo JP.

I just love the tactile quality of the LD, the wonderful art, and the
huge boxes: these big discs are like time capsules of old school
fandom and the 80's :)

[Dave Baranyi]

I don't have the box set, I have laser discs 20-50. I bought them way-back-
when in the mid-to-late 90s when Animeigo lost the rights to UY for a couple
of years and I wanted to see the entire series without waiting for some
indeterminate time when they might get it back.

All of the box sets I have, as well as loose LDs, I bought in the late 90s
before I bought my R2 DVD player. Once I had that it was "goodbye" to the
cost of shipping LDs around the world. Now with BD, I'm even happier.

Dave Baranyi

[cosmos...@yahoo.com]

On Mar 26, 6:10 pm, Dave Baranyi <anthony.bara...@bell.net> wrote:>
> All of the box sets I have, as well as loose LDs, I bought in the late 90s
> before I bought my R2 DVD player. Once I had that it was "goodbye" to the
> cost of shipping LDs around the world. Now with BD, I'm even happier.

Yeah, shipping LDs from Japan is rough and I consider myself pretty
lucky to have snagged my MI LD24 box from a seller on ebay located in
the USA about a year ago. LDs are somewhat fragile and tricky to ship
too, while 5 inch media fit easily into my mailbox and the much
smaller mass equals less chance of damage.

Back on the subject of the UY Blu Ray release, it would be terrific
(though improbable) if a company like Discotek would bring this out
over here. The usual problems would be at play: huge episode count
(Discotek did release Hokuto no Ken though), the (all too common)
contemporary prejudice against anime older than a year or two, and
translation (Discotek has licensed shows like HnK and Harlock which
were already translated by Toei, so UY would require negotiations to
obtain Animeigo's scripts and a new translation would just be too
expensive).

[Dave Baranyi]

I got the first box, and to my big surprise, it is put out by Warner Home Video!

The second surprise is that the t-shirt is actually a western-size "large", so I
could wear it. (Although I don't think that I want to wear it for ordinary t-
shirt occasions since it has a nice image of Lum on it.)

Finally, I watched the first episode and it looks and sounds very good. It's
been a long time, so I actually forgot a lot of what happened in the episode,
but it brought continuous smiles back to my face.

Dave Baranyi

[Dave Watson]

On 2 Apr 2013 00:54:18 GMT, Dave Baranyi wrote:

> I got the first box, and to my big surprise, it is put out by Warner Home Video!
>
> The second surprise is that the t-shirt is actually a western-size "large", so I
> could wear it. (Although I don't think that I want to wear it for ordinary t-
> shirt occasions since it has a nice image of Lum on it.)
>
> Finally, I watched the first episode and it looks and sounds very good. It's
> been a long time, so I actually forgot a lot of what happened in the episode,
> but it brought continuous smiles back to my face.

Youda thunk they would have gotten the subtitles from AnimEigo to give this
more appeal to Western fans. Why is that? It's not like anybody's gonna
license and release it here.

Watson.

[Dave Baranyi]

Maybe the folks at Warner think that they can eventually do a North American
release.

Dave Baranyi