Animeigo announces next batch of releases!!!!

[John]

Wow, calm down there.

The Secret Of The Urn DVD release is honestly as beautiful as you can get a film from 1965 to look. The picture quality is much better their Lone Wolf and Cub releases.

While I will agree that they have screwed up on a few releases (Samurai Assassin), I will admit that they have made amends with releases since then. These aren't blu-rays and I'm not sure what you're smoking, but the Sleepy Eyes of Death series leaves nothing to be desired. The quality is top notch as is The Secret of the Urn.

These are pristine in presentation and look great.

Egad. Obviously we disagree, and yet your response is to be plainly contrarian and talk down to me. That's a little defensive, wouldn't you say?

I've noticed that whenever there is an issue with quality control, be it food or service or home video, people tend to polarize. Some are not sensitive at all to hiccups in quality and it takes a Samurai Assassin to make them uncomfortable. Others lean towards the hypersensitive, and they will notice the tiniest flies in their ointment; this is the source of many arguments.

I believe that I am talking about problems that you haven't noticed for whatever reason. If it's not a problem for you, then congratulations; I hear ignorance is bliss. However, just because you are unaware or uninterested in what to you are 'small beans', that does not change the fact that:

-There is tremendously blocky encoding visible in the opening dark scenes and IIRC other dark scenes in Urn; I have seen similar blockiness on some MiB Shaw discs and earlier DVDs. This is quite rare among DVDs today and in my view reflects poorly on whoever is authoring the disc.

-I find Sleepy Eyes mostly decent to good throughout throughout, but there is some artifacing occasionally. I didn't notice any instances of artifacing in any Lone Wolf and Cub discs.

-Tangeant: If you think Urn is the best a 60s era film can look, you've been missing out. For example, if you're into Suzuki, Tokyo Drifter and Branded to Kill have a wonderful new release that handily outclasses these discs on DVD (e.g. there is virtually no print damage) to say nothing of the Blu-rays.

It's clear that Urn, Sleepy Eyes, and Lone Wolf all come from good sources, however when there is video artifacing such as the 'blocky effect' and 'aliasing' if that's the right term, this points to problems at the encoding process. If you will continue to insist that these are faeries that only occupy the brains of madmen, please articulate your position beyond 'beautiful as you can get' and 'much better'.

Also, I don't see how Animeigo makes 'amends' for tremendous errors like 'Assassin or The Battle of Okinawa by doing better on future releases. People have already paid for such discs with expectations based on prior purchases. Doing better next time doesn't fix those discs. Criterion, on the other hand, has a good history of making amends; complaints about their early Blu-ray packaging resulted in a new plastic case for BDs and a concurrent trade-in program.

[KUNG FU BOB]

Hey guys, thanks for your views. But please Vegeta84, as John said, there's no need to be critical of other members if you have a different viewpoint. I'll (and everyone else, will)hear both opinions regardless. So let's treat others as we'd like to be treated. Yes? Please? Cool.

John, I have seen, and absolutely love SECRET OF THE URN, so I agree it deserves a top-notch release. As for SAMURAI ASSASSIN, I'm embarrassed to say- though I've owned it for years (since it's US release on VHS in fact), I still haven't watched it yet.

As for my tolerance of technical defects on discs... Everyone has a different criteria. Personally, if it's uncut, letterboxed, original language, I'm happy. Sure, I'd like (and should be able to expect) a great job, but I know that's not always the case. So even though I wish each release would have a perfect image, include an original English dub if it's available (in case I'm ever in the mood for that), proper poster artwork on the case, a ton of extras, and an anamorphic picture, the lack of these things is not a deal breaker for me. Honestly, after my many early years of watching 7th generation VHS bootlegs, the fact that I'm seeing anything like this stuff on DVD and BD is a complete thrill! The things that really annoy me most are audio problems- out-of-sync, bad hiss, etc. But that's just me.

[John]

Yeah I'd hate to put you off Urn if it'll be an upgrade (issues nonewithstanding) KFB. As I said, the source is evidently high quality so for brighter scenes it's much smoother sailing.

I'm understanding of material that's seriously compromised or unavailable. This is true of many smaller and obscure works from all over the place. The thing is, a title like Secret of the Urn is the work of a presitigious director and well-looked after and available in high quality...

[Vegeta84]

Here are two simple ways of seeing things.

Two people can eat the same sandwich. One may like it, the other may not.

Two people can look into the sky on a bright cloudless day. One person can say the sky is blue, while the other can say it's dark purple . However, no matter how much the person thinks the sky is dark purple it's still blue.

The Sleepy Eyes Of Death films and Secret of The Urn have a better print than AnimEigo's release of the Lone Wolf and Cub films. Not saying that the Lone Wolf and Cub films have bad print sources, but the other films are superior in nearly every aspect. There is litterally no question of debate as it's not opinion, but simple fact.

It's your prerogative to find the print source to not be to your liking, but to say you're happy with the Lone Wolf and Cub transfers, but to slam a superior print source just simply doesn't make any common sense. No matter how much you want to sky to be purple, it's still blue.

No single company is perfect. Everbody makes mistakes. AnimEigo screwed up Samurai Assassin and Trail Of Blood, and by screw up, I mean they really screwed up.

Some films had bad transfers as well, Incident at Blood Pass springs to mind. However, out of about 80 or so releases about 90% have been great. Onimasa looks amazing, as does The Wolves, Shiniboi No Mono,The Geisha, Bushido, Revenge, etc etc.

If it wasn't for AnimEigo a shit ton of great films would have never seen the light of day in the states and I would have missed out on some great films.

Also, while I wouldn't say that Battle Of Okinawa had transfers as great as Sleepy Eyes of Death or Secret of the Urn, it is in no way a terrible transfer.

[John]

Here are two simple ways of seeing things.

Two people can eat the same sandwich. One may like it, the other may not.

Two people can look into the sky on a bright cloudless day. One person can say the sky is blue, while the other can say it's dark purple . However, no matter how much the person thinks the sky is dark purple it's still blue.

The Sleepy Eyes Of Death films and Secret of The Urn have a better print than AnimEigo's release of the Lone Wolf and Cub films. Not saying that the Lone Wolf and Cub films have bad print sources, but the other films are superior in nearly every aspect. There is litterally no question of debate as it's not opinion, but simple fact.

It's your prerogative to find the print source to not be to your liking, but to say you're happy with the Lone Wolf and Cub transfers, but to slam a superior print source just simply doesn't make any common sense. No matter how much you want to sky to be purple, it's still blue.

No single company is perfect. Everbody makes mistakes. AnimEigo screwed up Samurai Assassin and Trail Of Blood, and by screw up, I mean they really screwed up.

Some films had bad transfers as well, Incident at Blood Pass springs to mind. However, out of about 80 or so releases about 90% have been great. Onimasa looks amazing, as does The Wolves, Shiniboi No Mono,The Geisha, Bushido, Revenge, etc etc.

If it wasn't for AnimEigo a shit ton of great films would have never seen the light of day in the states and I would have missed out on some great films.

Also, while I wouldn't say that Battle Of Okinawa had transfers as great as Sleepy Eyes of Death or Secret of the Urn, it is in no way a terrible transfer.

When I asked you to articulate, I was hoping you might follow my lead and cite some examples to support your claims about quality. Instead, you return to blind assertions. If you are unable to specify and simply opine, well, there's no discussion if you're committed to repeating yourself.

With your second response, the rift between us is becoming all the more clear. My criticism thus far has had nothing to do with print quality. On the contrary, as I mentioned to you and later KFB the source (i.e. master, print, or what have you) is not the issue here. Most everything I've mentioned thus far has to do with video artifacing. As for Okinawa, take it from DVD Talk's Stuart Galbraith IV (http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/31329/battle-of-okinawa/?___rd=1):

AnimEigo has been extremely hit or miss with its Toho live action releases. The company's Samurai Assassin (1965), another Okamoto title, was an out-of-focus disaster of a transfer, totally unwatchable. Last spring's Shinsengumi wasn't much better; that transfer suffered from extreme combing-type defects. Battle of Okinawa at least looks great. The 16:9 transfer maintains the original CinemaScope screen shape, and the colors are good and the image impressively sharp. (A high-def transfer was done in Japan and the impressive results aired on NHK's high-def channel.) Oddly, the film retains its original title card but offers no other credits (nor does AnimEigo provide translated ones at the end of the presentation, as is their norm), which wasn't the case in the high-def version.

Unfortunately, the mono sound is appalling. Listening to the film, it brought back memories for this reviewer of 25 years ago when I used to watch Super-8 sound movies (including many features) on my old Canon projector, with the mechanical whirring of that machine dominating the room. The battle scenes almost drown this defect out, but during quiet moments the buzz is almost deafening. It's not clear whether Toho provided AnimEigo with a defective master or if they screwed up in the authoring, but in any case this definitely should not have been released the way it is. It's a problem that demands correction. If anyone at AnimEigo would like to make a comment about this problem and how it happened and what their plans are regarding replacement discs, I'll be happy to report it here.

Let's be clear: I'm venting here. I'm not trying to tell you you're not allowed to enjoy your movies, or that Animeigo should be captured and summarily executed, or that the coming apocalypse has some releation to video artifacing. What I am saying is that DVD is a standard well past a decade old and now more than ever the technology exists and the work has been done to pave the way necessary to getting past the facepalm-inducing technical flubs that for reasons unclear Animeigo's releases cannot seem to avail themselves of! You seem to like the food analogies, so let's look at it this way: there's a hair in my soup. Animeigo makes relatively afforable soup, and I don't want to import soup from Japan everytime I'm hungry. I'd really like them to stop putting hair in my soup. Glad the follicles don't phase you, but excuse me if I make a fuss.

...and it's still no consolation to anyone unlucky enough to land one of the poorer releases that well, 90% of the time they're actually pretty good. Although my pain may suggest otherwise, I don't depend of DVDs for survival; they're something of a luxury, and I don't like it when that's taken for granted.

[Vegeta84]

The best articulation that I can give is that I did not notice artifacing on either the Sleepy Eyes of Death films or The Lone Wolf and Cub films. However, the Sleepy Eyes of Death films on DVD come from a superior/newly restored print in comparasion to that of the Lone Wolf and Cub films, thus having more vibrant colors and less print damage. Overall, having being a bit more "pretty" than what we see in the Lone Wolf and Cub films.

I will agree that the Branded To Kill/Tokyo Drifter were better discs, but then again it's Criterion. They do much of their own restoration and are a much bigger company. AnimEigo is much smaller, but for it's worth I think they do a fantastic job.

I don't think they are perfect, but they are far away from being crap as well. There are not many companies left that release Japanese films in the states, so I try not to bad mouth them unless they truly deserve it.

Word of mouth goes a long way and before you know there won't be anyone releasing Japanese films in this troubled market. While this wouldn't kill me, it would be pretty sad knowing that I missed out. Sometimes I wish HVE and Ronin Entertainment had continued on in the last few years as I'm sure that I probably would have seen many more Japanese films than I currently have.

[waywardsage]

I can see the previous posters frustration about some of the poor Animego transfers. Samurai Assassin was appalling! Incident at Blood was as pretty terrible too. I found Secret of the Urn to be okay and the Sleepy Eyes of Death films to look great. The Lone Wolf and Cub films looked okay.

Lets all just be glad that Animego still releases samurai films. They're pretty much the only company left.

It would be cool if they would just list where they got their print from and their mastering process, (if any) like Criterion. It would help alleviate most of the complaints.

[John]

If I've resorted to hyperbole at all, it's because I think most of these are stupid mistakes that don't have to have been made. I agree that it's a good thing this niche interest is still being catered to; and although it would be naive to expect he same level of sophistication Criterion offers from Animeigo, I point to them more as an example of a company that has openly recognized some mistakes and tried to make amends. This commitment to customer service contributes to their image, as I am sure some gesture on the part of Animeigo's would for some of the truly problematic releases.

While as Galbraith mentioned it's possible they have been stubbornly provided with inadequate materials on these occasions, as unfortunate as that may be these instances appear to have no end in sight. Our business-consumer relationship is a two-way street; if they aren't going to perform consistently or at least try to make amends (as practised by even green companies like Well Go USA, who surely realize the value in it), that is what's truly going to scare away the all too thin audience that buys these discs in the first place.

I choose to be vocal about the subject because I abhor the "blame the victim" mentality that seems to arise from the fear of somehow being punished for not applauding even a minimal effort. Hopefully, others will take notice and collective criticism will raise the bar for future releases by Animeigo; they could do with a nudge.

[waywardsage]

If I've resorted to hyperbole at all, it's because I think most of these are stupid mistakes that don't have to have been made. I agree that it's a good thing this niche interest is still being catered to; and although it would be naive to expect he same level of sophistication Criterion offers from Animeigo, I point to them more as an example of a company that has openly recognized some mistakes and tried to make amends. This commitment to customer service contributes to their image, as I am sure some gesture on the part of Animeigo's would for some of the truly problematic releases.

While as Galbraith mentioned it's possible they have been stubbornly provided with inadequate materials on these occasions, as unfortunate as that may be these instances appear to have no end in sight. Our business-consumer relationship is a two-way street; if they aren't going to perform consistently or at least try to make amends (as practised by even green companies like Well Go USA, who surely realize the value in it), that is what's truly going to scare away the all too thin audience that buys these discs in the first place.

I choose to be vocal about the subject because I abhor the "blame the victim" mentality that seems to arise from the fear of somehow being punished for not applauding even a minimal effort. Hopefully, others will take notice and collective criticism will raise the bar for future releases by Animeigo; they could do with a nudge.

I think your concern is what matters. I emailed Animeigo and asked them to join our forum and discuss their releases. I was met with, well, indifference. They said there are "a lot of forums around" and that they basically can't join them all.

That being said, you're right. It's two way street these days. Companies are expected to maintain a conversation with their consumers. Animeigo doesn't seem interested in maintaining a social media presence or participate with its fans. Heck, look at how outdated their site is! And this is all coming from a loving fan who's made multiple large purchases directly from their site!

I really do wish they would open up more and let us in on whats going on behind the scenes. If the only print they can find of a classic isn't that great, well...I'd understand if they just told us instead of leaving it a mystery. Criterion has done this in the past by merely explaining it on the liner notes that the available print was the best they could find.

[John]

Well said. I guess they just don't take us seriously. The feeling is mutual.

EDIT: I don't want to make it sound like Criterion is perfect; The Last Emperor in China had a contentious remaster reminiscent of Kubrick's full frame atrocities. More recently, the release of Seppuku (aka Hara-kiri) drew on an inferior master that similarly to the DVD was window-boxed and cropped the image. The end result isn't something that's unwatchable but I certainly expect more (and although I find price uninfluential, I do not fail to notice that subpar still commands top-dollar...). Fortunately, Eureka!'s disc benefits from a better source and will be the version I eventually encounter. Animeigo once did that for UK fans of Lone Wolf and Cub.

[Takuma]

- 2012-06-05

[waywardsage]

- 2012-06-05

Wow! Is this their new cover for their classic 13 Assassins release? Where did you get this?! When is it coming out?!

[Killer Meteor]

One Animego release that annoys me is ZATOICHI MEETS THE ONE ARMED SWORDSMAN. The picture is far superior to the crappy UK disc, but the audio is horribly messed with. The rich music of the UK disc is not a very heavily compressed, ear piercing shriek.

[Takuma]

Wow! Is this their new cover for their classic 13 Assassins release? Where did you get this?! When is it coming out?!

The source is watermarked on the cover. And the date is written below it

2012-07-03

[Takuma]

also sometime this year

- http://www.animeigo.com/

via Al

[waywardsage]

Just saw this today by randomly checking the Animeigo site. Man, they don't do ANY promotion! I was beginning to think they weren't going to release the last set of the Sleepy Eyes of Death series.

So it seems that we'll be getting that trilogy in the middle of the year, May-July ish? Perhaps the Shogun Assassin series earlier. I'm disappointed it's not the true Japanese Lone Wolf and Cub series. I've never seen the Shogun Assassin edits. Are they worth getting?

[Takuma]

Release date: 2012-09-25

[Tosh]

Soooo, I'm guessing it's time to buy that BR player:xd:

[KUNG FU BOB]

Release date: 2012-09-25

The storm clouds parted... and beautiful rays of warm sunlight shone down on the faces of all the people. Then there was a sharp glint of light from a flashing blade, and blood spattered across the upturned faces... and all was as it should be in fandom on that day. LOL

Soooo, I'm guessing it's time to buy that BR player:xd:

This is like the Gods of Technology poking you with their proverbial katana Tosh.

[Tosh]

This is like the Gods of Technology poking you with their proverbial katana Tosh.

Yeah and they stuck it right in my wallet, which in my pocket also sticks me directly in my backend:xd:

[waywardsage]

The storm clouds parted... and beautiful rays of warm sunlight shone down on the faces of all the people. Then there was a sharp glint of light from a flashing blade, and blood spattered across the upturned faces... and all was as it should be in fandom on that day. LOL

This is like the Gods of Technology poking you with their proverbial katana Tosh.

Okay, first of all. I went super out of my way to get the DVD boxed set a while back. So, I'm not too sure that LW&C could look any better. I love it to death. But, it's an OLD movie. And it didn't look "remastered" on the DVD.

Hey, I'm happy to have new Samurai films in any medium. I'm just pissed that i'll have to probably re-buy it!

[waywardsage]

Release date: 2012-09-25

Typical Animeigo. Not a mention on their site! Why do they basically ignore us fans? What site are you getting this intel from!

[daisho2004]

Is this the original versions or the dubbed ones?

[John]

One would guess these are the original films, as they have used "Shogun Assassin" for their English versions exclusively in the past. Also, IIRC LWC is on 35mm; there's no reason a quality telecine wouldn't blow our minds. Being that Blu-ray has been such a long time coming from Animeigo and this is something of a flagship title, it doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility that they'd go to the trouble.

[Takuma]

Yes, LW&C ones as

a) there is only 5 Shogun Assassins

those are coming out on BD already at an earlier date

c) they're called Shogun Assassin