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Answerman - How Does Old Anime Get Remastered?

I always think that anime had a bit of a dark period between the early 2000s and around 2008. A time that was post-animation cells and pre-high definition.

This. It's a shame that shows like FLCL and early One Piece episodes (and many others) were only produced at 480p. But it is what it is.

I'm curious how current anime (specifically TV) is being mastered. We're getting to the point where 4K isn't a far off dream and shows only done at 1080p might suffer a similar fate like FLCL and other 480p productions. I'm sure there are many studios who haven't made 4K masters just from a cost standpoint. Hell, you could ask the same question about american animation!

This. It's a shame that shows like FLCL and early One Piece episodes (and many others) were only produced at 480p. But it is what it is.

GotenZ1 wrote:

This. It's a shame that shows like FLCL and early One Piece episodes (and many others) were only produced at 480p. But it is what it is.

One Piece started production just before Cel animation started to disappear.

If I recall correctly, they didn't even give Hols: Prince of the Sun a proper HD master when putting it out on Blu-ray, and that's Isao Takahata's debut directorial work, with work done by Hayao Miyazaki. It's hard to tell whether their logic stems from legit fiscal concerns, sheer laziness, or classic incompetence. Regardless, it's a troubling trend considering the pop cultural significance of their catalog.

Quote:

I always think that anime had a bit of a dark period between the early 2000s and around 2008. A time that was post-animation cells and pre-high definition.

This. It's a shame that shows like FLCL and early One Piece episodes (and many others) were only produced at 480p. But it is what it is.

I'm curious how current anime (specifically TV) is being mastered. We're getting to the point where 4K isn't a far off dream and shows only done at 1080p might suffer a similar fate like FLCL and other 480p productions. I'm sure there are many studios who haven't made 4K masters just from a cost standpoint. Hell, you could ask the same question about american animation!

I always think that anime had a bit of a dark period between the early 2000s and around 2008. A time that was post-animation cells and pre-high definition. With the pre-2000 shows, you can rescan the cells and remaster, but the best you can do with a show like, say, Hell Girl, is upscale it and hope for the best.

(Removal of film grain is a contentious issue among film nerds, but it's often a necessary evil. Some older film stocks are just so grainy that viewing them would be very distracting on a modern display.)

^ It was the studios that considered the cels, backgrounds and anything else used during the animation process as trash. This applies to more recently made series as well. I own a lot of background artwork from a 2009 CG series called Kobato., and even then, Madhouse was just folding the backgrounds to fit into a standard size circular bin.

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, it was not uncommon for people to go dumpster diving for these cels, backgrounds, etc. While some studios, like Toei, would package up some of their cel garbage and then resell them, more often then not, once the cels were filmed, they were trashed. The plastic used to make cels, acetate, was cheap and plentiful, and wiping them off for reuse was not a good use of resources. Some studios, like Madhouse, did hold on to their premium artwork, like artwork used for promotional purposes, as a sort of rainy day slush fund, but most of the stuff that was used under the camera was either thrown out or some employees took it home to resell through retailers like Mandarake.

The attitude towards production artwork has shifted within the past few years, especially with certain companies like Aniplex. Studios like to hold on to their artwork now and many opt to burn them, years down the road. Some artwork does make it out of the studios, though, as evidenced by the plethora of paper items being sold on Mandarake on Yahoo Japan at any given time. Most of it goes unnoticed by the Japanese firms, though, I know of one collector who was threatened with legal action at a convention a couple years ago for being in possession of production artwork from an Aniplex production, despite purchasing that artwork from a well known Japanese action site.