Mercurial Morpheus

Adding belated birthday wishes. I had remembered but was so busy that day, I didn't watch Longest Birthday until after midnight.

Damn. Looks like they're really mixing things up a bit. A lot of plot elements in the mix. The Sheryl falling bit is a bit of a conundrum. I know she's uber popular, but I sort of hope the production staff doesn't bend too much to playing her up as she doesn't really need it (did they really need to show the gears footage five times. (yeah, I know, three videos strung together) ) I'd like a more balanced triangle, and this promo's Sheryl, Sheryl, Oh hi Ranka. Sheryl did always look better with blue/purple hair though. The CGI of the streetscene was rather awful, I must say. They're probably still working on it. It definitely looks interesting.

Cathy? Oh you... Though I'd love one myself. Then again, It's not like I combed this thread, so maybe it does exist. Since we're dreaming, where's the Grace figures, dammit?

Probably gonna be a touch late because Raider3 sucks. We'll get there when we can.

To be fair, aside from the criminally low ceiling, Battlecry was a great game. I'm debating bringing my Max costume, but since I can't really wear it, it might seem awkward.

Hence why I never "upgraded" and missed out on the MW box (are those even still around?). Guld's movie death alone is worth preferring that version over the OAV. It's one of the most visceral on-screen deaths I've seen. You could feel it and it makes the sacrifice all the more poignant.The I'd love to see M+ on Blu, provided it's the current remaster sans the EE. They fiddled with it enough. Disney's set plenty of examples of what not to do, sadly. There are a few sites that mention it too. I just found the one below. http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/12/col...-plunk-and.html

Well, I'm in. Bringing Raider3 along again as well. Trying to get Dick Hunter but it seems unlikely. Silicon is this weekend at the Doubletree, and he's helping out over there. I'll be attending it afterwards myself (anyone else interesting in going to a Klingon slave auction?). Foodwise, well, Yelp isn't always the most trustworthy source in my book. Here in Modesto, Sushi Garden gets the highest praise despite being largely average, with a dependence on the same damn mayo sauce on so many rolls and not exactly the coldest sashimi in town (it was better the last time I ate there though). The better places like Osaka go largely unnoticed. I've also eaten at many negatively on averagely reviewed places that were quite good. It's mostly fanboying or venting 9 times out of 10. Not that I'm saying Tomi wouldn't be good, but I'll trust local word over a bunch of strangers on such a website. ;; It's been years since I lived in San Jose, so I can't remember off the top of my head what restaurants are there. My mother did remind me of Harry's Hofbrau. http://www.harryshofbrau.com/ I highly recommend it. It's relatively inexpensive, has just about any carving meat you could want (I prefer the corn beef), and is usually quite good for the price range. It's an old standby of mine, and sits a group comfortably as it has many long dining tables. I love sushi and all, but I don't see why we must always eat at such a place just because we're anime fans. Especially if we're leaving Japantown (so soon?). There's also the Country Inn, which is good american fare. Though if anyone prefers eating in Japantown, I still recommend Happi House. One can get coupons for two lunches for 10 bucks from the paper usually. Ironically, I didn't get into sushi until after I moved, so I know few, if any, places in my hometown, and I could walk to Japantown.

I know. it makes one wonder what happens if a celebrity actually did something worth reprove.

Not to mention destroy an entire cruiser being built in a completely different area. All while sober apparently.

I saw it dubbed a few weeks ago and wrote a bit about it, so I'll post it here. "I saw the Evangelion 1.0 dub yesterday. It was my second full viewing of the film, though I've watched parts, particularly the ending, multiple times. Aside from some valley-girlish moments from Allison Keith early on, some wooden Ritsuko in the beginning, Kensuke sounding even more dorkish, and some thankfully mild rewording on Funimation's part (namely Misato referring to Shinji as her "roomie"), it actually was pretty decent. I liked Gendo's new voice a lot. It had the same quiet menace the original had and the old dub lacked. The old dub sounded good, but the actor always played him too over the top and angry sounding. Rei was okay, though still nothing to write home about. Spike Spencer is improved. Shinji's more emo now and less outright whiny. Accuracy seemed fairly good, though Funi did embellish as usual judging from the fansub I was watching later. Nothing too horrible like their Negima dub I suppose (straight out Americanizing). Though I didn't have a sub script to outright compare to. Thankfully, it wasn't a repeat of the End of Eva debacle. Manga sold their soul to Gaijin to get that monstrosity made, and even the sub suffered for it. Thankfully, Funi didn't make the same mistake to reassemble what had always been a mediocre dub cast. I saw it at San Francisco's Sundance Kabuki in a last minute addition on Funi's part. It was digitally projected in what basically amounted to a cheap HD home theatre set up. The film itself on a burned, dub only Blu-ray disc. Hopefully, that will explain the color banding in some of the gradients I saw. The projectionist admitted not being able to use an optimum hookup for the equipment, but it still looked pretty decent outside that and the RGB bug in some scenes considering. I was expecting a digital presentation about equal to my home setup, so it wasn't that big a deal. I just hope the official Bluray doesn't have the same issues. Speaking of the Kabuki, do they have a system based on pure trust? Not one employee checked my ticket, and I payed earlier in the day. Also, I have no problem paying an extra dollar or two to be free of the damn "First Look" and all the crap I get from TV anyway. All in all, it was an enjoyable experience,and while I'll still prefer to watch Eva in Japanese, it's nice to know that not all of the dubs suck horribly." Looking at that "review" all he really says about the film is that a condensation of a TV storyline leaves things wanting. Gee, do we really need someone to point out that 8 hours of material won't be able to be as in depth as 15 hours (though that's from generously rounding up)? That's been a long standing difference in media. Film just isn't as kind to slower storytelling as TV or books can be. When you have a set time limit of two hours, you do what you can. Hence why it's four movies. Not to mention his example of comparing it to 2/3 of the series is misleading as he's essentially talking about a series of films he's seen only one part of with that observation. 1.0 does not represent the first 2/3 of the series, just the first six episodes and should be compared to as such. To blame the film for not having the same impact as the whole of 18 episodes is a little silly. A little over an hour is missing here. It's the following films that will get more cuts. 2.0 is vastly different. This film's been mostly criticized for NOT being all that different from the series from what I've seen. He also criticizes it for focusing on battles, apparently missing the meaning of them. Nearly every fight has something to do with Shinji's development and serves to advance the story. Not to mention that he makes it sound like the Gundam films as a chop shop feature when it's all new animation (that does use old storyboards). Really, it's one of those reviews that makes me wonder if he truly watched the film or even wanted to write about it. It sort of reeks of "I need to write something, but couldn't care less either way". As for whether or not it's a good movie, I believe it is. One has to remember that it is merely part one of four, and only has to get the ball rolling. So I think it's accomplished it's goal as an opener. That's not to say it shouldn't stand alone. I definitely noticed on second viewing the soft focus on Shinji's need of approval and distance from his father, and that's generally what the film amounts to. Naturally, since it's the first in a series, it doesn't have a solid conclusion to this storyline, nor should it. Really, one shouldn't judge Rebuild of Eva until the whole itself is complete. Though I would venture to say that it probably helps being familiar with the original, sort of like DYRL. Having no way of seeing these without such prior experience, I have no way of knowing how the film stands to an Eva newby.

More insult to injury for Noriko Sakai. Her summer home has been hit with arson. http://www.japanator.com/noriko-sakai-s-va...mes-11472.phtml This stuff is pretty childish. All for minor drug possession and use...

The trailer does look quite interesting. Nice to see more non-CG UC Gundam (though Igloo was great). The Youtube comment spoilers were annoying as usual. You've got to love jackasses that know full well that most english speaking fans haven't read it, and love to impart their knowledge. :roll:

That's what I was referring to. That the current remaster is just a cleanup of the current transfer, or at least uses the same source given the recurring flaws. The high amount of grain also suggests it came from a secondary negative as well. I'm not sure on the specifics of how DYRL was shot though. "Remaster" has become something of a buzz word itself. A new transfer would be nice, but since they cleaned up the old one, I'm guessing it won't happen, and since cels were considered toxic waste back in the 80s, there's no way they can just reshoot it. The best scenario would be if the current transfer isn't from the actual best source out there, but a dupe. It could explain the grain, as I've seen it with other animation transfers. I think the Bodolza error might have been the result of the Perfect Edition splicing. It does augment the downside of a remaster or transfer to higher resolution. The flaws become more obvious. The sad thing is when studios feel modern audiences can't handle them and would prefer a 50 year old movie to look like it was shot yesterday. Though we should all be glad that Bandai doesn't mess with the color of their animated library the way Disney (and from what I've heard Warner) loves to. Sleeping Beauty and a lot of others sport lovely remasters all fouled up because they sourced the cels themselves instead of the color tests for the tint. "LIES! :'(" Indeed. all the "fixed versions" I've seen, Han still shoots first. It's also true that many factors go into the projected resolution of a film. Hence why some argue that a 2k system is just as good if not better than a 35mm projection (anyone ever seen a 70mm projection? It's quite glorious). It all goes into how it was shot, how fast the film is, the lens used, and how many times it was processed if there are any effects, etc. The point of the discussion though is that film can have more detail squeezed out of it with the right equipment to a certain limit as technology improves. Digital, on the other hand, is stuck at whatever it was captured at. Both can be tweaked to look nicer to modern tastes though.

A source transfer without the DNR period would be preferred. There's rarely an "even hand" in the matter sadly. I hear you on the compression end though. Really, the biggest problem with the Macross remasters is the perhaps overly tweaked contrast and of course, the EE. It would be nice to see a new transfer of DYRL as well, given the rampant soft spots and frame error in the current one.

Indeed, pointless upscale is pointless. Judging from the pic, it's upscaled and DNR'd with some oversaturation to boost. It looks okay, but hardly incredible. He didn't go too overboard with the DNR. It even accentuates the unfortunate EE in the remaster. An upscale does have higher resolution, but the nature of the digital beast is that it's stuck in it's native resolution essentially. Hence adding the lines really doesn't do much outside of bloating the filesize and removing the work of the player's own on the fly upscaler. So even though the film is in 720p, the source is still locked at 480p. Hence you have a DVD in a BD package, nothing more. Add in the DNR to remove the grain (and some detail), because, as Zinjo sort of pointed out, studios are so scared of grain and believe people think HD has to be 100% clear, no matter what the cost (despite no problem with "filmy" theatrical showing), and you have a prime example of just what's wrong with the HD revolution. I've seen worse though, like Baka Wolf's horrid release of DYRL as well as what they did to the Star Trek movie BDs (ity's so wrong that the TV series looks better than the films due to revenge of the wax people). I've never uploaded to Youtube, but I believe it converts for you. So this would be lossy compression (DVD, most people forget that one) atop compression (whatever he encoded the file to, x2 if he tweaked a DVD rip instead of the original files, preferably he used a lossless codec, but I doubt it) atop lossy compression (mp4 wrapped in an flv container). Oh, and the Star Wars trilogy was essentially remastered twice. There was the 1995 THX release. The 97 SEs built off of that, but did add in their own tweaks (like framing). The 2004 DVDs were done in what was basically a rush job (like the rest of the SEs) by Lowry. They're really sharp and clear, but they all but outright destroy the proper look of the film to match Lucas' beloved prequel trilogy. Lowry may have cleaned up Star Wars, but the punched contrast, horrid blue tint, and messed up sound just added insult to injury with Lucas' amateurish and needless CGI (seriously, the SEs were some of the worst work ever to come out of ILM, 96's Star Trek First Contact has better effects. It was a painfully obvious rush job, the old models, while not as nimble, looking far more realistic), and horrid revisionism. I'll take the smeary old laserdisc rips of the real trilogy to the cold, digital nightmares featuring things like Hayden's head taken from an Ep III outtake he seems to feel is his "true vision". It's pretty sad when fans can produce better versions than the official release (like the color corrected and/or de-SEed fan edits. Even the edits that add more changes and actually fix things that were broken unlike the SE's CGI orgy ) But this thread isn't about Star Wars. Thank goodness for sites like Originaltrilogy.com. Thanks for the numbers Eugimon. It reminds me of why I get so peeved over what the fad of Digital 3D is doing to our theatres.

I've been debating responding to this thread, as these character debates tend to give me headaches. Heck, thinking over the reply last night and how long I could make it in my head was a touch nauseating. I'll try to keep it simple. On the male side, I picked Alto. Not because I outright dislike Alto, but because of simple process of elimination. Aside from his more naive moments, I like Hikaru. Guld was awesome, and while Isamu was a touch full of himself, I still liked him. It's been so long since I watched Zero, it would be unfair to choose Shin, though I don't remember caring much for him. This same reason applies to the female characters, so i omitted Sara and Mao from the running as well (if memory serves, my favorite Zero girl was, of all people, Nora). Same goes with II. I barely even remember Hibiki. Heck, I think I forgot that that was his name. I've only seen about ten episodes of 7, so judging against Basara and Gamlin also seemed unfair. That, and Basara's kind of kooky. So that leaves Alto. Of the four remaining, he's my least favorite. Namely due to his often thickheadedness and Kamille complex. He pretty much sabotaged the romantic aspect of the triangle outright (which is why I love the way it ended to pieces). Though he was a somewhat interesting character. Heck, I've cosplayed the guy. What really salvaged him was the observation that, despite running from acting, he always plays a "part". It wrapped up his action quite swimmingly. I post on the female side a bit later when I've had a better chance to go over it. That said, nice thoughts VFTF1, Killer Robot.

Yeah, the swimsuit Klan is rather generic looking. I can't believe they made a figure of that overly blatant nose art. Oh wait, it's Japan. I guess I can. I still wonder how they got away with it on the van. "It's the perfect embodyment of her passion, her showmanship and her playfulness." Ahhh, put a bullet in it. All it shows is her looking like a damn floozy. If that's the perfect embodiment of her, than she's a rather shallow character indeed (though I suppose it represents her mask quite well) . At least the face is less creepy than the actual art. Though the sculpt itself looks pretty good. Excellent infact. And just to cut it off at the pass, I'm mostly joking around here. Still, it's bewildering that that art got chosen for a figure, as the bullet and slogan just tip the scale a little too much, and I'm a big fan of nose art. Though I suppose there's worse art of her. I need to check this thread more often. I now demand they make a figure based off the RCA Ranka takeoff.

It's unsurprising someone would hack Megupoid to make her look like Ranka. Amusing though.

Thanks ntsan, but it looks really poorly thought out sadly. The color scheme is near illegible, and half the time, her face is obscured. Nice art choice though. I might grab the wall from it. Nice walls, Zinjo. Any plans for a UN Spacey version?

Thanks for the link. It's a nice song, and gets bonus points for having the five of them. It's interesting to hear how distinctive Mari in particular sounds.

It really does paint a difference between Japanese and US norms. The RIAA would have no problem using a scandal like this to drive sales. Here, they refuse to even make money off her past recordings. Talk about your "one strike, you're out" policies. A career ended over 0.008 gram of amphetamine. That's pretty damn ridiculous. She'll probably get no work any time soon. The bridges are essentially burned, and even if not, with her CDs pulled, Japan's short memory of idols will pretty much bury any fame she had by the time she returns.

Applause. That's basically exactly what appears to have happened. To be honest, I'd expect no less from the company in all my con experiences with them. Besides, "Weaseling out of things is what separates us from the animals.... except the weasel." Shame the new names sort of suck (SXION23?). I'll miss the ADV moniker. It was sort of fun watching them go from the big bad wolf to the scrappy underdog (with Funi taking their place with their "creative" dubbing and compression happy icehouse). Hopefully with this change they'll tighten up some of their shortcomings. Though isn't AD Vision itself still going to hang around? I was informed that only ADV Films is being retired. The true name survives at least. Animation Dubbing Vision.

Yeah, SJ's is smaller and a touch more quaint. I used to live within walking distance of Nikaku. Sad to hear Far Out Toys is gone. Thanks for the Sushi Maru recommendation. I'm still amused that I lived near Japantown for 19 years, yet didn't like Japanese food as much as I do now to know a good sushi place. My definition of Japanese food was Happi House (which I ate at recently and was pleased to find had returned to their former quality, great place for cheap eats).

Nikaku's own website - http://nikaku.com/ It's not updated, but still useful. They also have an ebay presence. It is a great store. Not suree on this one yet. I'll have to look into it.

About thirteen in total. Twas a good turnout.