Totoro redo!

By samson7point1
My Neighbor Totoro (original release shown left):
This has been a favorite of mine for a few years now. It was released twice on DVD. The first time was before Disney contracted with Studio Ghibli (the home of the celebrated anime director, Hayao Miyazaki). As with a lot of anime directed at younger children, the original release was hacked to pieces and recolored, because evidently North American children are far too stupid to like a cartoon if it is letterboxed and doesn't look like a bowl of fruit loops. To put it another way, when 20th Century Fox brought the film stateside, the left and right edges of the picture were hacked off to produce a "Full Screen" version of the film, the color intensity was dramatically increased, destroying or obscuring much of the subtle detail, and "edge enhancement" was applied to the picture resulting in permanant NTSC dot crawl. About the best thing I can say for the original release was that I loved the English voice track. (The original release featured only English language).






I very nearly bought a copy of the Japanese release of the film so I could watch it as Miyazaki intended (ie. widescreen, sane color levels, Japanese language track) but I was saved from the need by a re-release from Disney (shown left.) This version had everything I could have wanted and then some. The film transfer is faithful to the original, with no added colors. It is presented in anamorphic 16:9 widescreen preserving the original aspect ratio. The original Japanese language track is included as well as a brand new English language track recorded just for this release staring some big names like Dakota Fanning and Tim Daly. I'd just like to say to Disney: Thank you for not thinking I'm a half blind moron with no appreciation for subtlety!

For anyone who isn't familiar with Miyazaki's work, here's a quick rundown: Hayao Miyazaki is a Japanese anime director with a rare gift for storytelling. For the most part his stories seem to come from the imagination of a child but are all told with the grace and subtlety of a master storyteller. Couple this with a unique artistic style and he has some of the best movies ever made to his credit. Some of my other Miyazaki favorites are Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Nausicaa and the Valey of the Wind, and Grave of the Fireflies.

If you've seen Totoro before, you'll probably want to give this re-release a spin to see what you missed the first time.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What I've Learned Fixing Optical Drives

By samson7point1
So You Want to Fix an Optical Drive If you found this page looking for advice on how to fix an optical drive, you might be in luck.  There's a lot of information and prognostication out there these days that might tell you fixing a laser mechanism is a losing proposition, but the fact is that in many cases these drives are completely fixable. Over the past decade I've begun fixing a optical drive failures in a wide variety of hardware. In the process I've learned a thing or two about a thing or two and I've compiled my findings here in the hopes they may help someone else. Full disclosure: I'm a technical professional, just not in the field of electrical engineering.  I do this as a hobby.  My skills and information comes from a lifetime of curiosity and decades of reading manuals, reading books, learning from experts and practical application. My success rate in repairing these drives and restoring them to original function seems to be in direct opposition to popul
Read more

FM Towns PC ODE - Grey Tower Wizard Installation Notes And Review

By samson7point1
Image
The Gray Tower Wizard is an Optical Drive Emulator (ODE) for FM Towns PCs, not to be confused with the FM Towns Marty (which is a stripped-down and consolized version of the PCs) or the Doc Brown ODE for Marty (which is made by the same person).  The FM Towns PCs have dual floppy drives and the ability to add RAM which makes them capable of running more complex or resource-heavy games than the Marty. How Do You Get One? The kit including shipping ran me 150 Euro.  Ordering one is basically the same process as the GDEmu, Rhea, Phoebe and Doc Brown.  I had never ordered anything from Deunan before but I'm more than familiar with the popular complaints about it being difficult.  It's not like ordering something from Amazon, but I didn't find it to be very difficult at all.   I signed up for blog updates, waited until he announced he was going to sell them, then refreshed the Wizard Ordering page  until he activated it.  When he did, the ordering page changed to a form to submi
Read more

ColecoVision RGB Mod [Updated]

By samson7point1
Image
[Updated June 2020]  As with all hobbies these things can be learning processes. After initially completing this mod, I discovered some new things and made some changes.  Primarily, I've re-incorporated the RF box for actual composite video, figured out the black & white picture problem, added a buffering capacitor to the audio output and tapped the audio from a different location to maintain compatibility with the ColecoVision Expansion Module #1.  The Expansion module doesn't work with RGB out, but now it's at least usable with composite Genesis 2 cables.  Background ColecoVision wasn't something I had or even played growing up, but several years ago someone gave me one.  Since its only AV output is RF and that makes it hard to have multiple systems connected at once, it sat in a box for about 10 years until I stumbled across Ben Heck's tutorial on a very straightforward composite video mod. The Picture Quality Produced by the Ben Heck composite vide
Read more