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REVIEW: Blue Exorcist: The Movie [Limited Edition] Blu-Ray


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SpacemanHardy



Joined: 03 Jan 2012
Posts: 2511
PostPosted: Mon Feb 03, 2014 7:14 pm Reply with quote
Just wanted to put my two cents into this:

I rented the DVD version of this movie from an anime rental shop in my city, and the video quality was absolutely *abysmal*. The colors were faded and mute, detail was muddy, lines were fuzzy instead of sharp. Not only that, but there were absolutely no special features to speak of. I'm not expecting perfect quality from a plain old DVD, but this was seriously one of the worst transfers I've seen since the old "Mangle Entertainment" days. To think that AoA would willingly put out a release this ugly looking and slap a rather hefty $30 price tag on it is, in my humble opinion, kind of insulting.

Naturally it's good to see that the bluray looks a lot better, but I'm not paying 90 bucks for a single movie which is largely inconsequential to the overall plot of the series. As for the movie itself, it was neat, but one viewing was enough for me.

Also, according to Chris Beveridge, both the English and Japanese 5.1 audio tracks are done in lossey DVD-quality audio instead of lossless DTS-HD. This is yet another slap in the face, given that there was more than likely plenty of room for all three audio tracks to have been lossless. Slowly but surely, AoA has been reducing the quality of their English tracks with every new release, most recently with Fate/Zero (which only had a 192 kbps bitrate, even on the bluray) and Magi (which had nothing more than a paltry 160 kbps bitrate, barely even CD audio quality).

Kinda shoots that theory of "higher costs for higher quality" in the foot, eh? Wink
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
Posts: 14084
Location: currently stalking my waifu
PostPosted: Mon Feb 03, 2014 7:28 pm Reply with quote
This movie was alright, but too predictable and a bit dull. Still, I found it to be better than the television series, if only because the series went on a poor-quality tangent towards the end and the movie didn't waffle.

Didn't like the little kid though, his character design is awful.

SpacemanHardy wrote:
Kinda shoots that theory of "higher costs for higher quality" in the foot, eh? Wink


I have strenuously defended AoA in the past for their high pricing, but I'm not going to defend low bitrates or poor transfers.
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FenixFiesta



Joined: 22 Apr 2013
Posts: 2581
PostPosted: Mon Feb 03, 2014 9:31 pm Reply with quote
The good side of BE:The Movie is that it is on the better end of the spectrum of "Anime:The MOVIE" releases, the bad side is that it IS following the usual Anime Movie patterns in that it feels like a higher budgeted episode that arguably runs a little long.

It is worth the watch for someone that is already a big fan of BE, even if the movie was priced reasonably it still might not be worth the buy.
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jr240483



Joined: 24 Dec 2005
Posts: 4480
Location: New York City,New York,USA
PostPosted: Tue Feb 04, 2014 1:51 am Reply with quote
well i might wait until the price drops. the prices for these aniplex releases are insanely ridiculous.

at least its in english dub. though the odds of this getting an AS release is very slim at best.
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Panzer Vor



Joined: 04 Dec 2012
Posts: 648
PostPosted: Tue Feb 04, 2014 2:29 am Reply with quote
jr0904 wrote:
at least its in english dub. though the odds of this getting an AS release is very slim at best.

Considering that the TV series will be getting its chance on Toonami, chances for the movie airing would be better than most.
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Echo_City



Joined: 03 Apr 2011
Posts: 1236
PostPosted: Tue Feb 04, 2014 11:50 am Reply with quote
SpacemanHardy wrote:
Just wanted to put my two cents into this:

I rented the DVD version of this movie from an anime rental shop in my city, and the video quality was absolutely *abysmal*. The colors were faded and mute, detail was muddy, lines were fuzzy instead of sharp. Not only that, but there were absolutely no special features to speak of. I'm not expecting perfect quality from a plain old DVD, but this was seriously one of the worst transfers I've seen since the old "Mangle Entertainment" days. To think that AoA would willingly put out a release this ugly looking and slap a rather hefty $30 price tag on it is, in my humble opinion, kind of insulting.
So it isn't just the special features dvd (for a bluray only version show that cost over 300 bucks I expect a damn extra features bluray, and/or that the special features DVD would come bundled with the DVD version) for SAO, or SAO itself on DVD, from AoA that look like crap, and it isn't just me.
Quote:

Also, according to Chris Beveridge, both the English and Japanese 5.1 audio tracks are done in lossey DVD-quality audio instead of lossless DTS-HD. This is yet another slap in the face, given that there was more than likely plenty of room for all three audio tracks to have been lossless. Slowly but surely, AoA has been reducing the quality of their English tracks with every new release, most recently with Fate/Zero (which only had a 192 kbps bitrate, even on the bluray) and Magi (which had nothing more than a paltry 160 kbps bitrate, barely even CD audio quality).

Kinda shoots that theory of "higher costs for higher quality" in the foot, eh? Wink
Good-yet depressing-to know that 300+ bucks is buying us blurays with audio quality that was scoffed at during the "glory days" of MP3 sharing over dial-up via Napster.
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SpacemanHardy



Joined: 03 Jan 2012
Posts: 2511
PostPosted: Tue Feb 04, 2014 12:41 pm Reply with quote
^ I too have watched the SAO DVDs, and yes, they had horrible video quality as well. Not only that, but they had some of the most boring, amateurish menus I've ever seen. They looked like someone made them in five minutes using Windows Movie Maker.

The Blue Exorcist TV series DVDs looked crappy too, but they at least had a lot of bonus features included.

On the subject of AoA's audio quality, it gets even crazier than that. It seems with every new release they put out, they gradually lower the bitrate on the English dubs more and more. Both the Madoka and Blue Ex BDs had completely lossless audio. Then SAO came out, and the bitrate was 320 kbps. Fate/Zero went down to 192 kbps. And Magi flatlined at only 160.

But the thing is.... The UK blurays of SAO from Manga Entertainment? Have completely lossless audio.

What the hell, Aniplex? Mad
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Zhou-BR



Joined: 28 Feb 2008
Posts: 1463
PostPosted: Tue Feb 04, 2014 3:03 pm Reply with quote
This movie has some of the best art direction in recent memory, by the always reliable Shinji Kimura. It demands to be seen in high definition.
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jr240483



Joined: 24 Dec 2005
Posts: 4480
Location: New York City,New York,USA
PostPosted: Wed Feb 05, 2014 3:17 pm Reply with quote
Zhou-BR wrote:
This movie has some of the best art direction in recent memory, by the always reliable Shinji Kimura. It demands to be seen in high definition.


But if that happens, you have to expect aniplex is gonna jack up the price.

personally it may be better off to wait until there is either a price drop or they decide to release it on AS before the DVD release.
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jugemxjugem



Joined: 02 May 2012
Posts: 7
PostPosted: Thu Feb 06, 2014 3:36 am Reply with quote
Even tho visually impressive it was one of the most painfully predictable movies i have ever seen.
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truanifan678



Joined: 08 Jul 2006
Posts: 73
PostPosted: Sat Feb 08, 2014 1:55 am Reply with quote
Do the UK versions of anime usually have better audio? Should I import anime from the UK instead of the buying it in the US if I'm looking for video and audio quality?

Also, I think there were some of the better extra items inside the LE Japanese release that were left out of the AoA LE release. I forget which ones or where I read it, but I can try to find it again if people are interested. I Don't get why the Japanese release gets an unfolding artbox looking thing and America gets the usual blu-ray case.

Japanese LE


American LE



What I would like to know is why Aniplex of America (since they seem to have direct connections to the Japanese Aniplex) doesn't just duplicate their Japanese releases and add in the English language content? I mean, they're charging prices that are on par with the Japanese prices. So why low quality and change things?

If fact, why don't most of the American companies just increase their quality just a little? It can't cost that much extra to improve the video and audio. I don't get it...
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Weazul-chan



Joined: 10 May 2005
Posts: 625
Location: Michigan
PostPosted: Sat Feb 08, 2014 3:48 pm Reply with quote
truanifan678 wrote:

What I would like to know is why Aniplex of America (since they seem to have direct connections to the Japanese Aniplex) doesn't just duplicate their Japanese releases and add in the English language content? I mean, they're charging prices that are on par with the Japanese prices. So why low quality and change things?

If fact, why don't most of the American companies just increase their quality just a little? It can't cost that much extra to improve the video and audio. I don't get it...
Japanese companies sometimes favor Japanese consumers, it's been like that for a while. which is also why non-Japanese release of anime aren't as high in quality as some of the Japanese releases. the Japanese companies sometimes don't send out the highest quality masters for the non-Japanese companies to use when localizing it as they could. and they may contractually oblige the non-Japanese company to only use the materials they provided, and perhaps only as-is as well.
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MaxSouth



Joined: 11 Oct 2008
Posts: 1372
PostPosted: Sun Feb 09, 2014 5:46 pm Reply with quote
Guys, I am amazed at all those talks about DVD.

This is format from twenty years ago that, by contemporary standards, has really bad quality even in its bests shape. Sharpness of the image is horrible -- as it should be for 480p resolution.

The only truly relevant format is digital. Various digital media stores offer various quality of the video. It would be more relevant to discuss which offers better picture.

(Or at least discuss Blu-Ray, but not DVD.)
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SpacemanHardy



Joined: 03 Jan 2012
Posts: 2511
PostPosted: Sun Feb 09, 2014 6:19 pm Reply with quote
MaxSouth wrote:
Guys, I am amazed at all those talks about DVD.

This is format from twenty years ago that, by contemporary standards, has really bad quality even in its bests shape. Sharpness of the image is horrible -- as it should be for 480p resolution.

The only truly relevant format is digital. Various digital media stores offer various quality of the video. It would be more relevant to discuss which offers better picture.

(Or at least discuss Blu-Ray, but not DVD.)


Oh, I'd *LOVE* to talk about the bluray.... But I'm not paying NINETY FREAKIN' BUCKS just to watch a film that's largely inconsequential to the show it's based on.

It's too bad that AoA has adapted this "bluray is only for collectors, DVD is for everyone else" strategy. It's leaving a lot of potential fans out in the cold. Just because someone doesn't want all the knick-knacks and extra junk that comes with the limited edition set doesn't mean they don't want high-definition.

Oh, and I've seen plenty of DVDs that have a really great picture. Provided that it received a good authoring job that used the HD source material, some DVDs look almost as good as blurays themselves. The recent trailer for Nozomi's Space Adventure Cobra release is proof positive that you can make DVDs look fantastic.
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Echo_City



Joined: 03 Apr 2011
Posts: 1236
PostPosted: Mon Feb 10, 2014 1:20 am Reply with quote
SpacemanHardy wrote:


It's too bad that AoA has adapted this "bluray is only for collectors, DVD is for everyone else" strategy. It's leaving a lot of potential fans out in the cold. Just because someone doesn't want all the knick-knacks and extra junk that comes with the limited edition set doesn't mean they don't want high-definition.
It seems more that AoA has adopted the "blu-ray is for real "quality" collectors, DVD is for aspiring collectors and the streaming-ironically offering better quality than DVD-is for the 'plebes'" strategy.

Quote:
The only truly relevant format is digital.

DVD is digital. DVD can look good-never close to the bluray, unless the bluray was poorly made-but Aniplex's exorbitantly price DVDs look awful, far below what little DVD can offer.

If you want to see an "eyecrime", play your copy of the Sword Art Online bonus feature DVD, the disc that came with the blu-ray-but not the DVD-version of SAO. I have ADV era DVDs that are of vastly superior quality, as I expect everyone who owns a single DVD from that era does; "when you aim at the ground, it is hard to miss."
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