Ein_boser_Schotte:
Dash no Chris:
I bloody hate bootlegs and bootleggers. When we are at conventions selling R2 dvd's, the bootleggers are unloading the customers pockets on crap. Buy the R2 or R1 releases, give back to the companies that produce the works you enjoy.
The above post was mine, I didn't log out of chris' account when i logged on so those words were not his. Cheers
Wow, I was looking forward to making my 300th post, and someone else made it for me wink (Ein_boser_Schotte uses my computer quite often, and is usually more careful about logging me out before posting
). The words may not have been mine, but the sentiment certainly is.
That bootleg Ghibli boxed set you're considering is an act of theft, plain and simple. No money was paid to Studio Ghibli to license those works. As was previously mentioned, Kaze no tani no Nausicaa (Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind) has no official DVD release (nor does On Your Mark) -- plus that knockoff set was released a few years back (shortly after Monoke-hime), so several of the films it contains had no official DVD releases at the time. The point being, the image quality of many of those films is going to be VERY substandard.
Zeekade Zarathos:
They're the original films in the exact form the directors intended.
Hardly. Studio Ghibli never intended for their films to be stolen by some bootlegging asshole. If you want the films in their "original, intended form," buy the R-2 releases.
Zeekade Zarathos:
Disney is going to be releasing some of those soon, but I have no idea what they will change or if they include the original Japanese Dub.
Disney's contract with Studio Ghibli does not allow them to make edits, so when you see the R-1 release, you're seeing an uncut version of the film. The R-1s also include the original Japanese dialogue tracks, and optional English subtitles.
seba_boi:
I got tons of those kind bootlegs... They provide the daily dose of anime entertainment while I wait for the original ones to come out... Buy the originals if you like the anime in the bootleg version, if you want... I only bought the original Cowboy Bebop releases and five of the most recent original North American release of the Ghibli movies (Totoro, Kiki, Laputa, Princess Mononoke, and Spirited Away)...
So, you're saying that of all the bootleg anime you've purchased ("tons"), you've only liked 6 of them enough to warrant purchasing the legitimate releases? If so few anime entertain you enough to buy the licensed releases, I have to wonder why you bother investing so much time and money in anime in the first place. If you're going to invest the time in unlicensed copies of anime, at least download the fansubs for free and save yourself some money (don't give it to bootlegging thieves).
Nesagwa:
Are the subtitles that bad?
In my experience, all HK bootleg DVDs have terrible "English" subtitles. The groups that produce these don't seem to have a staff member who speaks both Japanese and English. So, what you end up with is the Japanese script being converted to Chinese, and the Chinese conversion being interpreted into English. The dialogue content suffers greatly when "translated" in this manner anyway, but add to that the fact that the bootleg company's English-speaking staff members exhibit a less-than-elementary-school-level of ability with the language, and what you end up with is barely readable. As a result (and to save themselves the trouble of bothering with non-Chinese subtitles in the first place), many HK bootleggers are now producing knockoffs using licensed Region-1 releases, English-language dub tracks and all. Now, I'm not particularly fond of English dubs, but goddammit those R-1 companies are paying the production studios for the licenses to release legitimate, legal English-language versions of these films. Neither they, nor the Japanese production studios who provide us with all this entertainment in the first place, deserve to be stolen from like this.
If you plan to buy a legitimate R-1 DVD release of something, but can't wait to see a subtitled version, there are plenty of free fansubs out there for you to download. They're just as illegal as the HK knockoffs, but at least you're not putting money in some thief's pocket to get them.
Just in case you haven't had the opportunity to see the Japanese R-2 DVD releases of the Studio Ghibli films, Nesagwa, here's what you get when you buy each film:
2 DVDs in an Amaray keepcase package.
Disc 1 provides the finished version of the film, dubbed in Japanese. Most of the Ghibli DVDs also offer non-Japanese dubbing options. For example, Kiki, Laputa, and Totoro all include an English dub track. Porco Rosso has additional dub tracks in English and French (featuring Jean Reno as the French voice of Porco). Mononoke is actually a 3-disc set -- the 3rd disc is the so-called "international edition" and presents the film dubbed in 8 different languages (Japanese, English, French, Cantonese, German, Italian, Spanish, and Portugese), with optional subtitles for each language (and theatrical trailers from each of those countries). Subtitles are always available in Japanese and English (the only exception being Gekijouban Meitantei Holmes [aka, Great Detective Holmes: The Movie], which had only Japanese subtitles). Porco Rosso, of course, also had optional French subtitles.
Disc 2 provides you with another copy of the film, but in two versions: the finished work (Japanese dub, btw) and the original storyboard illustrations and developmental sketches. By using your DVD player's "camera angle" feature, you can jump back and forth between the two versions while watching the film, allowing you to compare the film's original, earliest stages to it's final, completed form. The 2nd disc also contains a collection of trailers and advertisements for the featured film, often including trailers from foreign markets (Mononoke's R-2 release boasts a collection of 19 trailers/adverts), plus a collection of advertisements for the rest of the films in the Ghibli DVD library. Trailers for new Ghibli works (Spirited Away, The Cat's Return, etc.) are also often included. Finally, most of the 2nd discs in this series include some sort of bonus item. Porco included a short interview with the film's producer, Kiki included a short video clip entitled "Ursula's Painting," Whisper of the Heart included a short look at the artwork of "Baron no kureta monogatari," Laputa included credit-free versions of the film's opening and ending sequences along with a short video clip entitled "Tenkuu no sho," Only Yesterday included a 1991 documentary on the making of the film, and Totoro included credit-free versions of the film's opening and ending sequences along with a 20-minute guided tour (with Miyazaki) of the Studio Ghibli Museum (which had not yet opened to the Japanese public at the time the DVD was released).
All this for only 4935 yen each. Even the releases of Princess Mononoke and the "Mononoke-hime wa koushite umareta" documentary [aka, The Making of Princess Mononoke] are only 4935 yen, and both of those sets contain 3 discs each. These days, most R-2 anime DVD releases (which are only 1 disc, and have no language options) cost around 6090 yen, so the Ghibli releases are an absolute bargain.
As you can tell, I love Japanese animation and hate bootlegging. I especially love the works of Studio Ghibli and Miyazaki Hayao -- these are films which touch the viewer on an emotional level (I can't look at an illustration from any Miyazaki work without getting a lump in my throat). If any creator of Japanese animation never deserved to have his stuff bootlegged, it's Miyazaki Hayao.
Nesagwa, if you're planning to attend <a href="http://www.anime-expo.org/" target="_blank">Anime Expo</a> or <a href="http://www.otakon.com/" target="_blank">Otakon</a> this year, please let me know -- I can bring my collection of the Ghibli R-2 releases with me so you can check them out first-hand (you can find me in the <a href="http://www.hoteiyalv.com/" target="_blank">Hoteiya Las Vegas</a> booth in the dealers room). If you can't make either of those events, keep your fingers crossed -- our good friends at <a href="http://www.risingsunimports.com/" target="_blank">Rising Sun Imports</a> are trying to talk us into taking part in the dealers room at <a href="http://www.awa-con.com/" target="_blank">Anime Weekend Atlanta</a> in September (we're still working on the logistics of that one).
--Chris
) to make up for my crappy purchase. 