Animeigo announces the ‘Lone Wolf and Cub’ set on Blu-ray

[mpm74]

Animeigo has announced that the classic “Baby Cart” films, which helped shape 1980′s Shogun Assassin, will be available unedited, uncut, and remastered on HD from new prints, in its original Japanese language with English subtitles. Expect the set to go on sale this Fall. More details.

[OpiumKungFuCracker]

This is a must buy it now set!!!! I have the dvd U.K version of this box set, this version would be a huge upgrade for me...

[waywardsage]

The jury is still out on weather the picture quality with be that much of an upgrade. The DVD's PQ wasn't that great in my opinion.

[Ronin]

Now up on Amazon for pre-order:

Lone Wolf & Cub Complete Blu-Ray

[daisho2004]

It says they put them on a 2 Disc set...I wanted Single Discs!

[John]

Yeah, I wouldn't have asked for six discs but a third would have been nice. Hopefully the spaciousness of BD50 will make this work.

I asked Animeigo a few days ago about whether or not they were doing extra work on the content for this release, and the response was yes. I hope the work is good.

[Ronin]

I didn't even realize this was a 2 disc set. That does seem... sparse. Hoping for the best. The cover art can be seen on their web site now:

AnimEigo

[100pr00f]

cant wait for this. I will be getting the shogun assassins box set in blu-ray in a few days to do a review for Animeigo

Ill post it here with pics to see photo quality

[waywardsage]

I don't see how they could squeeze all 6 films on 2 discs and not let the quality dip. This doesn't look good.

They're old films, and I'm not so sure good prints even exist of them. Even the DVD's are kinda marginal in quality.

[John]

I don't see how they could squeeze all 6 films on 2 discs and not let the quality dip. This doesn't look good.

They're old films, and I'm not so sure good prints even exist of them. Even the DVD's are kinda marginal in quality.

It's not that much more content than the last release, and if we're talking two BD50s there will be 25GB more space than the last release. It's just speculation, but ~16.5GB per film, while not ideal, isn't necessarily a death sentence. All considered, I'm more worried about the additional processing being done; is this going to be a DNR fiasco? I'd hope not, but Animeigo can be hit and miss...

[Ronin]

The blu-ray set is now available at their web site:

AnimEigo Site

2 discs, 6 films. 1080p. I am dying to read a review...

[Vegeta84]

The blu-ray set is now available at their web site:

AnimEigo Site

2 discs, 6 films. 1080p. I am dying to read a review...

I'm guessing the picture quality will be the same as the Shogun Assassin 5-film blu ray set?

[John]

Not quite; I sent an email about a month ago and got a response that said they were doing some additional noise reduction or something. Could be good, could be not so good.

[John]

http://ryangallagher.org/blog/each-film-is-around-12-14-gigs-if-youre-curious-about-the-level-of-compression/

Looks like somebody's got a copy!

According to one article (http://www.howstuffworks.com/blu-ray.htm), over 2hrs of footage (so what, 2hrs15min?) is suited to 27GB, so 27GB/135min=0.2GB/min. This set has 507min and averages say, ~13GB per film, so 78GB/507min=0.15GB/min.

It's not optimal, but not abysmal?

[Killer Meteor]

http://www.rockshockpop.com/forums/showthread.php?2852-Shogun-Assassin-5-Film-Blu-ray-Set-From-Animeigo-4-24-12&p=37630&viewfull=1#post37630

[John]

For %$*&'s sake...

[Killer Meteor]

I have to ask: has anyone seen the Japanese dvd for ZATOICHI MEETS ONE ARMED SWORDSMAN? On the Animego, the sound is so filtered, it's ear splittingly painful.

[John]

I have to decline. I demand 10+ pages of bitching NOW.

[Karlos]

I was just about to post the exact same link.

Cannot believe it's actually poorer than the SHOGUN ASSASSIN collection.

I've decided not to bother purchasing this, and will stick to my Eureka DVD box set.

Now...can anyone take the audio and subs from the SA set and put them on the LW&C set...?

[BlackLamaFaction]

I have to ask: has anyone seen the Japanese dvd for ZATOICHI MEETS ONE ARMED SWORDSMAN? On the Animego, the sound is so filtered, it's ear splittingly painful.

Yeah my copy of One Armed Swordsmen is from the Toho Dvd, I think the sound is pretty good on that (I love that Intro music). I still have never seen the Animeigo release, but I wasn't happy with some of their other releases either. One that comes to mind was Samurai Assassin, I think that was one of the worst jobs they did.

[Takuma]

I have that Animeigo One-Armed, too, and recall the audio being very painful for ears. Lady Snowblood had some similar issues, but not as bad. In comparison, on the Toho dvd of Lady Snowblood has no audio issues whatsoever.

And LW&C... yeah, this BD set is a skip. Let's hope someone else comes up with a better product. While a Japanese release is unlikely, it's worth mentioning Toho released their dvds a few years ago, with a load of brand new extras (such as interviews with the filmmakers). So there's some interesting material out there waiting to be put on BD...

[Karlos]

If anyone is still thinking about buying the LW&C blu-ray set, here’s a good pre-order deal on it:

http://www.deepdiscount.com/product/lone-wolf-cub-complete-6-film-blu-ray-collection/

$40 and free US shipping.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I must return to my uncontrollable sobbing...

[Ronin]

Ugh. Way too much DNR. Never bought the DVDs, was waiting for blu-ray, now I guess I will continue to wait or pick up the DVDs at some point. So disappointing.

[Karlos]

As others have said, our biggest hope now is that UK company Eureka sees fit to put out their own blu-ray set (it could happen, they are about to put both LADY SNOWBLOOD films out on Blu over here).

It's a shame (as well as puzzling) as the SHOGUN ASSASSIN set looks so nice - what went wrong?!

Ah well, I'll console myself with the fact that the Eureka DVDs look great when upscaled on my BD player.

[John]

The Shogun Assassin BDs weren't that good, something I think the claustrophobic bitrate could very well have been a factor in. Nevertheless, they were HD, and they were an improvement. As to why they've decided to marry poor bitrate with excess DNR, my correspondence with Animeigo tells me they only "lightly" applied it, and it was to get rid of background video noise. I hope someone's locked their medicine cabinets...