"Madman" Region 4 DVD release of SDF Macross

Renato · March 15, 2005

http://www.madman.com.au/catalogue/item.php?catalogue=MMB066

I apologise: I would take pics, but my camera broke last week. Damn Sony Nazis.

OK, very quick review:

This is the Australian release of Animeigo's translation and restoration of SDF Macross. Please bear in mind I have never seen the US Animeigo release and everything I know about it is only what I have read on these boards.

First of all, the packaging. A few people liked the "classic" look of the white-lineart-on-black-background design for the US release, while others expressed a slight dissatisfaction, if I recall correctly. This led then to the custom keepcases.

The Madman packaging is mainly white and features a couple of juxtaposed images of Roy's VF-1S and a close up of Hikaru's face, taken directly from the anime, but cleaned up to make a nice cover design, with the old-school Macross logo in shiny blue. A very nice touch. The reverse side is identical, and the "spine" of the box features a large, again SHINY, Macross logo. The whole side of the box is red, so the Macross logo is without the background rectangle design on that part, which is also a nice detail.

Inside the box there are three standard DVD cases, each carrying two discs, with each disc in turn containing 6 episodes. The design for these will get on some of our Lying Macross Purist nerves: They use the Row-Boat-Heck MPC artwork for the covers of each case. Botox Millia and all. Well, never mind.

The cutest thing is that on the back of each case there is an illustration showing different stages of the "winning" animation of Battroid Attack, the game Max and Millia play in the arcade. Very, very cool. :lol:

Onto the discs themselves: There is an old-school Miyatake painting of the SDF-1 on each disc. Anyone who wants a bigger print of this pic can find it here, by the way: http://www.macrossworld.com/macross/books/mecha_illuf.jpg

Content: Menus are fashioned to fit in with the style of the packaging, and so I imagine they too differ from the AnimEigo release. Anyway, you have what appears to be a stylised rendering of a VF-1 cockpit display against a white background, upon which thumbnails representing six episodes are displayed for selection. The cursor is a "target". Move it around for a while and you will see a mini UN Spacy logo pop up. Click on it to access the Easter eggs. There are Easter eggs on every one of the six discs. These include: alternate openings/ endings, lineart slideshows, before and after cleanup comparison showreels, Ishiguro audio interview, etc. I heard someone in another thread mention that the alternate opening and ending wasn't on the Animeigo release. Dunno about that, but it's on this one, anyway.

Picture quality is 3C: crisp, clear and clean. I have also have the show on videotape and the images have been very nicely restored. But you all knew that.

However, it seems to me that different teams worked on different episodes for the restoration process, since for example, the episode "Bye-Bye Mars" is considerably paler in terms of colouring than some other episodes (it's particularly noticeable when you skip to the next episode in the sequence, where the colours are very vibrant). In fact, some colours remain bolder even on my VHS version of that particular episode. One scene which stood out specifically was the part where a mass of Destroid Spartans are deployed from the Daedalus. The green is of a very weak hue on the DVDs, while it's considerably solid on the VHS version.

This is one of the things I would like to be compared side by side with the US Animeigo release (since it SHOULD be identical), and if possible, the Japanese Emotion one (though I'm not too bothered for the latter as we are well aware of its interlacing and film problems).

So much for "quick review". Jeez.

Well, to round up: Best. DVD. Box. Set. EVARRR.

(But, again, you all knew that anyway.)

PS Little info on the distributors: Madman pretty much handle all anime in Australia, from what I've seen and heard. Very often (if not, all the time) they will take what's been released over in the US and bring it out down under. They even brought out Transformers the Movie, the series, the lot.

And I was gonna say one last thing but I've got damn MSN messenger turned on and I can't concentrate so I forgot. <_<