Forum - View topicREVIEW: Freedom Sub.DVDs 1-3
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Mmsven
 Posts: 86 Location: British Columbia, Canada |
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$40 for a 25 minute episode in a jewel case? You won't see me buying this in a million years. You can buy 26-episode series for that much if they are on sale.
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Vortextk
 Posts: 892 Location: Orlando, Fl |
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I thought the point of a "sub only release" was to try to still license anime for english audiences but keep costs down when it is obviously not a high seller. HD dvd version or not, that's a ridiculous price. And since HD seems to be dying out as well....Atleast the players are getting "decently" cheap. I still wouldn't want to spend 100+ on something with 30 dollar discs that will be going out of style in a year or two most likely.
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Randall Miyashiro
 Posts: 2451 Location: A block away from Golden Gate Park |
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This was Bandai VIsual's (Japan and US) only exclusive HD-DVD title with all their other high definition titles being Blu-ray with the exception of a few dual format titles in their first few releases. I wouldn't be too surprised if t hey eventually release Freedom in Blu- as well.
I can't think of a single BVUSA review here since Gunbuster which didn't have everyone up in arms about the pricing. Yet BVUSA hasn't changed their pricing point which makes me believe that this evil scheme is proving sustainable for them despite initial speculation. Keep in mind that they are making a huge profit compared to DVDs costing half their price since production costs for these sub only titles is minimal and physical costs take a larger percentage of the total price for more economical companies. I've also stated before that those business reply cards from BVUSA don't require postage and I have sent in each one I have received, There is a column for price from 1 Excellent to 5 Very Bad. Needless to say we should all circle the number 5 and send these in since is postage paid. In regards for the DVD series itself Freedom is the series which really deserves that rare A from Theron. People are always in motion and it looks more like a film than an OAV. With all the lipsyncing this one much like Igloo would actually be a bit hard to dub. With all the attention on detail I was a little sad that the series doesn't take into effect the Moon's lower gravity. There are still a large number of feature films that I believe would benefit from the high definition treatment more than Freedom. As far as OAVs or television series are concerned there are not many that I think would do as well as Freedom from the boost in resolution. As for the Eden pronunciation I believe that E De N is the traditional way that the Japanese have mispronounced this word over the centuries and is accepted into their dictionaries as such. This is similar to the word energy which the use the kana for E Ne Ru Gi for even though they are capable of pronouncing the soft G sound. |
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daedelus
 Posts: 743 Location: Texas City, TX (ajd: 6/11/05) |
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I've watched the first episode. I have the second but haven't watched it yet.
The HD is crisp and beautiful. I do get the feeling that I'm watching a movie rather than an OAV. I started to download the extra stuff, but had to abort because something came up. Procrastination being my middle name, I haven't got around to trying again. As for the price? Well, I consider it a guilty pleasure indulgence. In any case, RACS lists them for $29.99 each, so it's not quite as bad as the MSRP. |
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Anime World Order
 Posts: 390 Location: Florida |
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I think in the case of Freedom it's particularly warranted, as people are in effect paying $40 to watch a 25-minute advertisement, then multiplying that by six. That's not even an exaggeration; Freedom won a Clio Award! One could conceivably spend that $240 on LOTS AND LOTS of Cup Noodle ramen, but you'd realistically die of a sodium overdose before finishing even half. I still say that episode 10 of Chojin Sentai Jetman is the definitive Cup Noodle product placement for our time. The alpha and omega, as it were. Evaluated just as a commercial, Freedom is really something exceptional, in a similar league with the BMW Films. But in comparison to other anime, especially Akira because I can't help but look at Steamboy or this and think of Akira (no accident there), it feels kinda paint-by-numbers. The downside to the inevitable Akira comparison is that Freedom just isn't as good as Akira. Motorcycles racing through the Neo-Tokyo cityscape are a lot more visually exciting than tricycles with go-kart pedals racing inside orange tubes or rovers traversing the surface of the moon. Perhaps I shouldn't compare moon rover sequences to ones involving cycles, but there aren't exactly a whole lot of moon rover sequences for me to compare to, you know? Still, even the moon rovers in Armageddon had miniguns! I wasn't blown away by the animation quality as much as the reviewer here was. It's this cel-shaded CG a la Kakurenbo: Hide and Seek, which was made by the same people. Kakurenbo's pretty impressive considering it was made by like, three people, but everyone wore masks and things were largely shrouded in darkness; a stylistic decision that had the added benefit of masking the limitations of the 3D cel-shaded approach to character animation. In Freedom you see everyone's faces and bodies front and center, and despite it being an expensive production I don't think the technology is quite there yet. In my eyes, it seems as though they spent all this money to make animation that resembled a cutscene from one of the PS2 Naruto fighting games. I could have said "Gungrave cutscene," but that'd just get me thinking about Urda. Fine, I secretly like that one episode of Urda where they're using the Panzerfausts as tonfa while fighting atop a tank. If only the rest of it was like that. The 3D characters in Freedom (I THINK just the main characters were done in cel-shaded 3D and the background characters were 2D, which is somewhat jarring) all overexaggerate their movements like they're marionettes on strings, and while the lips are animated to match the original voice recordings, the rest of the faces are still largely frozen in place. Maybe that's easier for me to overlook if it's not CG or if the mouth movements are just "opened/closed" like it usually is? For the time being, I think the usage of cel-shaded 3D CG is best reserved for animating mecha and backgrounds, not characters. I never much cared for the character animation in the new Appleseed movies either. On a personal note, I really don't like the concept of downloadable extras that aren't on the disc itself, of which Freedom has a few. If the HD DVD format loses out or BVUSA takes the servers down, then those extras are gone forever. Should this practice catch on, it's possible that several years from now even the main feature won't be on the disc, which would serve just as a key to let you download it. That scenario is a hypothetical at the moment due to bandwidth considerations and the fact that current high-definition players don't have that kind of storage capacity, but I'm sure the studios would love that if it came to pass. I think the last episode of Freedom comes out in Japan at the end of the month. I guess I could then consider podcasting about it, though I think I just said everything I had to say on the subject in this post. |
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Serge
 Posts: 162 |
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Dude, you nailed it. Now think about it, if Anime Works did this, all 3 Episodes would be on 1 DVD and the Retail wouldn't be more than $20, allow $120, what a total ripoff, you gotta be insane to pay that much. "Once you get past the price issue" Right if that's gonna happen. This is America, not Japan. |
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Beruda
Posts: 114 |
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I have this on my list of rentals so I will check it out but I will never pay that much especially since I don't own a high def player and won't own one for some time if ever. For that kind of money they could and should've included plenty of content (plus an english dub even though I prefer subbed anime) on both formats. IMO this series is not a good value for the money. I might consider it down the road if it gets cheaper at some point.
B. |
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hikaru004
 Posts: 2306 |
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I've watched all 3 episodes via Netflix and RentAnime and loved it.
Unfortunately, I'm in the Blu-ray camp and am waiting for a possible BD release. 
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fuuma_monou
 Posts: 1853 Location: Quezon City, Philippines |
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I remember that! Jetman was the last sentai show to be dubbed in Tagalog. After that we only got Power Rangers, first in English, then dubbed in Tagalog. Anyway, I'll probably bite the bullet and buy HONNEAMISE (Blu-ray edition) once I finish buying KOR TV from my old comic shop. (Clearance sale's been going on for over a year; once the old stock is gone it'll be another branch of the owner's badminton shop). HDTVs are getting cheaper all the time, just have to wait for the same to happen with BD players. Or maybe go against the tide and get a cheap HD-DVD player. |
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Kaioshin_Sama
Posts: 1215 |
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Yes Bandai, by all means, charge the Japanese price for the disc in Region 1 market, that will work.....
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Xenofan 29A
 Posts: 378 |
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It's still $20 less per episode than the Japanese price. I don't know what you think the Japanese pay, but it's usually a lot more than BV charges (with the exceptions of some of those HD-DVD/DVD combo packs).
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HitokiriShadow
 Posts: 6251 |
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That's nice and all, but R1 is not Japan. |
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Xenofan 29A
Posts: 378 |
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That's NOT THE POINT. BVUSA has NEVER charged Japanese price for any of their DVDs. While I disagree with some of their pricing, I think, for example, that the prices on the Gunbuster 2 DVDs were reasonable. They were nowehere near the Japanese price ($60 per episode is much higher than $40 for 2), and they gave quality equaling the amount paid. OVAs should, and do, cost more than TV series as a whole. They cost more money per episode to create, so companies have the right to charge more per episode for them. |
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Jacut
Posts: 142 Location: Paris, France |
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You're absolutely right, but BE's policy is to follow closely the decisions made in Japan and apply it to their own market. I personnally work at another subsidiary of BV (BEEZ, the same as Bandai Entertainment USA for the European market) and we have a hard time to make the Japanese understand that we need blu ray discs at, say, 25 or 30 €, with a lot of content and bonuses or else it simply won't sell here, but the Japanese think that what is done in their home country should apply everywhere... |
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samuelp
Industry Insider
Posts: 2249 Location: San Antonio, USA |
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Ooh, have any inside info about what effects the Bandai Visual being absorbed into Bandai Ent. will have on their market strategy? |
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