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NEWS: Kurokami's U.S. BD Release to Have English Dub Only

Pretty sure he meant the fact that Japanese audio track is already available in the master tapes/source from the licensor, from whom Bandai US will be doing the transfer from.

configspace wrote:

Pretty sure he meant the fact that Japanese audio track is already available in the master tapes/source from the licensor

That's not a fact, that's a speculation and a wrong one at that.

The animation is created first, then the voices are mixed on to them

It would cost way more to have to digitally strip the language track back off and then redub on top with English when they will have the clean masters from the Japanese voice over sessions. It will have been a copy of those sent to BE US.

I think I understand what you're saying--hypothesizing--in terms of the final tapes/sources delivered to Bandai US i.e. there are two deliverables: video + JP audio / video + EN audio; but not: video + JP + EN audio. But what I'm saying is that it doesn't matter. The fact is that both English and Japanese tracks are available from the very beginning and in some master form(s) that could have been given to Bandai US. In fact, the process you mentioned just shows that the audio track is not inherently tied with the video at all. (and if it was digital I don't see how there's any cost to manipulate/multiplex/demultiplex).

So again, even if there are two different masters for each language that does not pose a technical problem at all. It's not like licensees just use whatever is handed in its original form and slap them onto BD/DVD. If Bandai US were given the license, it's a relatively trivial task to mix/combine the tracks, which is already being done for the DVD mind you.

Simply put, this decision for the lack of JP audio was done not out of any technical hurdle. Remember the reason stated was that "we don't have the license", not that it was technically impossible.

I [sus]pect that the drop in episode count has more to do with Bandai Entertainment trying to make money than the Japanese requiring it. It costs more to produce BDs than DVDs. They probably decided to reduce the episode count rather than increase the price.

Saying that the "Japanese" wouldn't give them the rights doesn't absolve them from responsibility for designing and scheduling this release.

Given the growing sentiment of "official, professionally translated subtitled anime on DVD/BD is worthless" (as seen in every thread ever dealing with sub-only releases), I think this dub-only release is a good move. After all, people don't want to pay for language tracks they don't want, right?

You do realise that in order to create the english dub they don't just get sent a DVD with the Japanese audio on it, right? They get audio masters that include separate vocal, sfx and music tracks.

..so you know they already have the Japanese masters or they couldn't have made the English dub which is on the DVDs.
It's not that they don't have the Japanese track, it is that they are not authorised to include it on the blu-ray.

You do realise that in order to create the english dub they don't just get sent a DVD with the Japanese audio on it, right? They get audio masters that include separate vocal, sfx and music tracks.

..so you know they already have the Japanese masters or they couldn't have made the English dub which is on the DVDs.
It's not that they don't have the Japanese track, it is that they are not authorised to include it on the blu-ray

[...]
In January 2009, as the sterling exchange rate sank to a shameful 128 yen, a blogger in Japan began posting his musings on grey imports Blimey, he said, I can buy Monty Python for a fraction of the Japanese price, and have it sent to me from the UK. Come to think of it, I can buy a LAPTOP, too. A different plug on the cable and I'm laughing!
Initially, activity was timid. A few early adpopters broke out their credit cards to see how it might work out. When one of them posted a hjappy photograph of the battered buy solid Amazon UK parcel on his Tokyo doorstep, the floodgates opened.
The first I heard about it was a day later, when a worried anime distributor called to pick my brains. UK online sales of one of his company's titles, which we shall have to call Schoolgirl Milky Crisis, had suddenly, dramatically spiked. Initial elation turned to concern - why was he suddenly rushing to meet orders so much larger than usual? It turned out that the orders were mainly going abroad, and that's when he asked me to dig around on the internet.
It took less than a minute for me to track down the anime speculators and their exited bloggery. Which only made matters worse, because it I could do it, so could the Japanese licence holder. Many Japanese companies are utterly petrified of this sort of thing. You wish your anime were cheaper? They wish it were more expensive, because grey imports give them nightmares.
It was only a few months ago, in this very column, that I was discussing the symptoms of Blu-Ray Blues, whereby a company tried to centralise and standardise all editions of a release into a single Japan-made disc. But if that super-master-disc, containing all language versions, is 40% cheaper abroad than it is in Japan, it would play havoc with a company's Japan-based statistics, economics and decision-making. Domestic sales will always come first for the Japanese, as foreign money, in these credit-crunchy times, is back to being just gravy. This, in turn, will present accountants in a Tokyo office with a sudden desire to force distributors in the UK to raise their prices to discourage Japanese grey-import opportunists!