| 1. | (7 posts) | Nausicaa Film Comics |
| 2. | (11 posts) | For Auction: Miyazaki 10 Movie Combo |
| 3. | (3 posts) | "Princess Mononoke" - Own it on VHS! |
| 4. | (5 posts) | DVD Talk and Lack of Acknowledgement |
We looked at 46 posts by 33 different contributors.
Rolling along. . .
The astue browser can tell that the ratio of legit to pirate Studio Ghibli Goods on Ebay hovers around 0.5 to 1. Knowing this, Steven Kim asked, "I just saw a Nausicaa color manga. . . I didn't see these in the manga section of Nausicaa.net (well, I only checked the Nausicaa manga section); are these for real? They don't look like pirates."
Turns out that the auction was for the Nausicaa Film Comics, not a colorized manga version. I replied, "they're under the "Nausicaa" Books section" To a question about their contents (anything cut from the film?), Joe Monson answered, "There are occasionally minor lines that won't appear in the Film Comics, but nothing major has been left out."
David Mankins gave some tips to avoid winner's remorse, "I think all the film comics for Ghibli films are still in print. In the US, you can get most of them new from places like Sasuga books or Kinokuniya for a little over $9/volume (plus some fee for shipping and handling, I imagine, if those shops aren't local to you).
Japan-manga.com, a used bookstore in Japan that has on-line ordering and which will ship to the US has many Ghibli film comics for $4/volume. Shipping, for the patient, is not too bad.
You will want to keep these things in mind when contemplating a bid in an auction.
Continuing the auction theme, AJ Kock spotted someone hawking 10 of Miyazaki's films on Amazon.com's auction site, leading to the obvious question, "Are these real?"
Johnathan Miller replied, "Yeah, they're real. Real pirated copies. ;-)"
Chris Wallace filled in some more info, "While these discs are DVD, they would not have been natively encoded in the MPEG-2 format from D-1 digital master tape (as the two Japanese and United States releases were). As Jonathan also notes, they most likely used either the VideoCD MPEG-1 format, or they were from a VHS master. . . Therefore, note that the quality, while "excellent", is VHS-excellent and will not begin to approach LD, much less properly-transferred DVD, in resolution and color fidelity.
So, to make a long story short, even if they are "legit" for the country they were originally sold in, they are not legitimate in the United States, nor are they the high-quality DVD editions of these films we are hoping for.
Felix Wong added, "I think there is no need to be excited over bootlegs. Here, I would like to remind everybody, new or old members alike, that Ghibli has already decided to release everything during the course of the next two years. So if it is not from this schedule and imported from Japan direct, or it is not officially released from Disney and other distribution rights holders, do not waste your money on them."
Zach B. noted, "I thought I'd spread the good news for those of you who don't own a DVD player yet. Princess Mononoke will be avaiable for pan and scan sell through in North America March 13th. . . Hopefully Disney will come out with a widescreen Japanese version..."
VHS? You mean the thing with magnetic tape?
Chris Meadows isn't holding his breath for a subbed version, "it seems like most of the people who would want such a thing are going to DVD. Even Disney couldn't make them at a low enough cost to make a profit on them."
Robin Cassady offered an alternative, "Now that I have the DVD I'll sell you my import VHS cheap, but it doesn't have subtitles. :-)"
Tom Wilkes noted that the PM DVD made the #10 spot on DVDTalk's Top 10 DVDs of 2000. But another thing drew the most attention, Tempest wrote, "According to them, "Originally planned to be released without its original Japanese language track, Buena Vista Home Entertainment stopped dead in their tracks after a petition of DVD Talk Members urged them to reconsider this release", I would have placed that petition more as a result of members of this mailing list and Nausicaa.net as well Anime fans from other Anime related websites. "
Michael Wojcik noted, "Chuck's capsule review of _PM_ once again gives DVD Talk sole credit for getting the Japanese track on the DVD. (Sigh again.)"
Vance Palodichuk defended the lack of inclusion, "DVD Talk represented a larger base of customers. Even people who weren't farmilliar with PM wanted the option to have it in it's original language, which could mean more to BV than just the purists."
Robin Casady thought otherwise, "Michael's contact at BVHE made it clear that BVHE takes no notice of online petitions and little notice of email. Paper snail mail is what impresses them. This list encouraged everyone to send letters to BVHE. My recollection is that it was reported here that BVHE was impressed with the letters they received."
Looking for a non-Viz published English Nausicaa? (Hint: No). Felix Wong spotted reviews of the "Princess Mononoke" DVD and "The Trip of Shuna" at EX.org. (Nausicaa.net info on Shuna). Marc Hairston's musing on Suncoast. A petition to publish the Nausicaa manga in Poland.
Adventure gamer? check out "The Longest Journey". Anyone familiar with LucasArts will get a kick out of all the references in TLJ.