Berserk Merchandise (and plushies!!!)

[Starnum]

I didn't really like the FMA dub, especially Al's voice. I know he has a similar voice in the Japanese casting, but I'm not sure I agree with that either. They make his voice to high pitched sounding. Gentle I can understand, but he doesn't need to sound like he's eight, does he? Ed's voice is cool in Japanese, but as for the English voice, meh.

[The Herald]

But he is a ten year old boy's soul trapped in a suit of armor. Ed was only 11 when he tried to bring his mom back, and Al was 10, so I think they got the voice right. Where they went wrong was keeping the same voice actor for Ed when he was a little kid, and in my opinion Vic Mignogna is a little too mature to have ever played Ed. He got all of the actual acting done really well, but a lot of the times he just didn't fit a teenage kid, always sounded a little off somehow. I think the English dub of Al was pretty spot on though.

[Starnum]

Well I guess that works if his voice hasn't aged at all, but we know that his body has, if you read the manga.

Heh, now we got an SSJ2 Gohan gif, nice. I'm corrupting this forum with a DBZ craze. Ah, well enjoy it while you can, it can't last forever.

[DrPepperPro]

Someone already got theirs. He bought from this site: http://www.rightstuf.com/rssite/

Oh well iIll just wait another month or so for amazon to ship (lazy bastards)

[hbi2k]

For those who are interested in the Berserk remastered R1 DVDs, there's a thread over at SkullKnight.net that has a LOT more details: http://www.skullknight.net/forum/index. ... #msg160480

1. A beautiful progressive encode, straight from film masters
- Sharper image
- Better color
- Even better than the original Japanese DVDs
2. A Japanese stereo track
- As some know, the original release had mostly a Japanese mono track.
3. A tightened up English dub
- There were sync issues with the original, so I re-aligned as much as I could in the given time.
4. A balanced (volume) Japanese and English audio track
- On both the Japanese DVDs and our previous DVDs, the volume level of each episode fluctuates up to 9db sometimes, which I found to be really annoying when watching episodes back to back. I want my Berserk marathons to be seamless! Guts
5. Audio pops / dropouts / noise removal
- There were tons of these glitches in both audio tracks, and even present in the Japanese release! Now gone.
6. Japanese disc art
- The new discs now have the Japanese disc art which is pretty cool
7. Japanese slates
- Some might or might not care about this, but cool for the purists
8. Re-timed subtitles
9. FIXED TRANSLATIONS and SPELLINGS (well minus B E H E L I T, sorry!)
- This is what gave me the most trouble but I think is one of the most valuable changes to this re-release. The translations, previously, were HORRENDOUS. Not just simple grammar and typos (to my horror there were a ton of them), but the very meaning and word choice of the translations were just wrong! To me, since I don't particularly like watching anime dubbed, the subtitles are the most important aspect of how the story is told, especially for a show like Berserk! There is so much philosophy and the characters are so deep, that misinterpreted translations can utterly ruin the whole experience. Now, granted, I don't know Japanese, so for me to fix the translation errors by myself is utterly impossible. But, I read through all the english subtitles over and over again, searching for sentences that sounded awkward or out of context, and brought them to our in-house translator. She would then study my proposed changes alongside the Japanese dialogue/script, and together we would re-write them if appropriate. Fortunately, the translator this time around (the original release was done by someone else) paid more attention to the context of the show and was very patient with me when we would spend 15 minutes searching for the perfect way to phrase something. In the end, we probably changed 30-40% of the subtitles, which is a shit load of editing!!!

Here are just some quick translation examples to see what I mean:

Original
Casca is always rebelling against her station, and her life as a mercenary.
Re-release
Casca gave up womanhood long ago and lived her life as a mercenary.

I mean, that original sentence is completely backwards!! Cmon now!

Original
He is coming...
His presence is imminent...
The King of the supreme beings...
It is the advent of the four guardian angels!
Re-release
They are coming...
They are near...
The rulers of the supreme beings...
It is the advent of the four guardian angels!

Simple mistake, but the original is confusing.

There are also some side-by-side screenshots to show the improvement in video quality. I was kind of skeptical about how much they could really improve such an old (and, let's face it, cheaply-animated) show, but it looks like you can really see a difference.

[War Machine]

Give me blu-ray or give me death!

I used to be pretty casual about blu-ray, but after seeing how much better The Shawshank Redemption looks on blu-ray, I can't accept any less. Regardless, this re-release is well worth it. I'll probably hold out on this one since I have the other DVDs, but for anyone who doesn't have them: what are you waiting for!?

[lon3vvolf]

I highly doubt that Berserk will come out on BluRay anytime soon. However with these comparisons I will be wasting some of my next paycheck to order the box. =)

Wonder how some scenes have been redubbed or retranslated. I know Judeaus last spoken words have been translated into several different things.

[Aetherfukz]

I highly doubt that Berserk will come out on BluRay anytime soon. However with these comparisons I will be wasting some of my next paycheck to order the box. =)

Wonder how some scenes have been redubbed or retranslated. I know Judeaus last spoken words have been translated into several different things.

I have never seen a single anime that is released on BluRay, otherwise I would have bought it on the spot :/

[War Machine]

I have never seen a single anime that is released on BluRay, otherwise I would have bought it on the spot :/

DBZ has, just a couple of movies I think.

[hbi2k]

Would Berserk really benefit all that much from Blu-Ray, though? As I understand it, the original 16mm masters are such that an HD transfer would only show more film grain, without really adding any detail to the actual animation. It would likely take far more money to restore Berserk's masters to the point where an HD transfer would be worth it than a Blu-Ray release is likely to make. The only real advantage to Blu-Ray would be throwing all 25 episodes onto one disc, and while that would be NICE, I don't know that it really justifies a whole new release.

[War Machine]

Would Berserk really benefit all that much from Blu-Ray, though? As I understand it, the original 16mm masters are such that an HD transfer would only show more film grain, without really adding any detail to the actual animation. It would likely take far more money to restore Berserk's masters to the point where an HD transfer would be worth it than a Blu-Ray release is likely to make. The only real advantage to Blu-Ray would be throwing all 25 episodes onto one disc, and while that would be NICE, I don't know that it really justifies a whole new release.

Monetarily speaking, there's not a big difference between a DVD and a Blu-ray release because all you have to do is not compress the audio and video as much. In that regard, it would actually be easier because there's barely any tweaking necessary to preserve a quality that stands up to the originals. The only noticeable difference would be in production, paying the royalties for Blu-ray instead of DVD (as is my understanding, it's actually cheaper on Blu-ray right now) and the disc itself, which is a bit more expensive on Blu-ray. And, of course, whether or not you have the means to do it, by which I mean production companies that have experience with Blu-ray or at least willing to give it a try (probably very few for anime companies and where I believe the higher prices on Blu-ray come from).

In regards to quality, it won't improve it as much as it won't degrade it. DVD releases look great but they are still heavily compressed, check this picture out (pretty self-explanatory):

http://xylon.haloapplications.com/hddvd/harrypotter/01/

Having a less compressed audio and video give you a cleaner view of what the director was seeing when he agreed distribute the finished product.

Although I understand that Media Blasters might not have the means to release anything on Blu-ray, I can still wish.

[lon3vvolf]

Got this from a thread somewhere else where a guy from MB explained why its not worth it for a bluray release:

http://www.media-blasters.com/berserk/t ... rkcomp.mov

Thats good enough quality for a dvd for me. Besindes anime isnt taped like a live action movie. Its only got a couple frames per second (except Akira =]) so you cant improve it that much. ALso its best for a dvd release since practically everyone in the world has a dvd player.

[War Machine]

I understand completely that Media blasters is unable or unwilling to do a blu-ray release at the moment, I'm just talking about how awesome it would be if they did. Also, I'm not complaining about the remastered release, it is a sweet deal.

Besindes anime isnt taped like a live action movie. Its only got a couple frames per second (except Akira =]) so you cant improve it that much.

It doesn't increase the frames per second, only the quality of the frames, and yes, even in drawn pictures, the difference in quality is staggering. It'd be like what you see in the video you posted. I tried looking for screenshots of the DBZ Broly Double Feature movie on blu-ray but I can't find any pictures that haven't been compressed and resized.

[DrPepperPro]

I noticed sometimes in the Cowboy Bebop movie on blue ray that there are little shadows coming off of character cels sometimes. It's probably there normally as well, but just more blurry so it's not noticeable. Here's an example, look on the right of Jet and there's a little shadow coming off.



But anyway, it's not really a problem, just a funny thing to notice.

[lon3vvolf]

Just picked up the remastered version of the anime. The release date was today. Its too bad the dvd player at my work is broken so I have to wait till I get home. Cost me $30! Its a great deal for anyone who doesn't have it yet. Go support Anime Works!

I'll try to post pictures of it when I get the chance.

Happy St. Pattys day.

[hbi2k]

I got the Berserk Remastered set as an early birthday present yesterday. Haven't sat down and watched much yet, but I did a comparison test between it and the old version to see how much of a difference I would notice in video quality. (Watched most of Episode 17 that way.)

The most noticeable difference was in the colors. The old singles had a very faded, washed-out, almost pastel look to them, which I always assumed was at least partially intentional. The remastered versions have much more "pop" to them.

In terms of grain/dust/dirt and artifacts, it's pretty much the same. You can see an improvement if you're looking for it, but it's not nearly as dramatic as the colors. To be fair, this IS a twelve-year-old show, and not the most visually impressive from a budget standpoint even when it was new, so I wasn't expecting miracles.

Even just in the little bits that I watched, I noticed some definite wording and spelling changes in the subtitles, mostly for the better. I'd have to double-check my manga volumes, but they seem to be taking some of their wording cues from the Dark Horse translation, for whatever that's worth. I also noticed that "Chuder" has been changed to "Tudor," which has long been preferred in some circles (not a big deal to me either way).

The other big noticeable change is that all the OP/ED credits as well as the title cards for each episode are now in Japanese.

[hbi2k]

Apologies for the double-post, but I put together a video review (of sorts) of the Berserk Remastered set.

Embedded version for the lazy:



However, if you go watch it on the actual YouTube site, you can see it in HD, which is about the only way you're going to actually be able to see a difference in the remastered footage.

If it's not obvious, the dude dressed as Travis Touchdown is me, I use that picture as my author avatar in all my YT stuff. There's a bit near the end where I talk about some of my other YT projects, but it's over quick for those of you who don't care about that. (-:

[DrPepperPro]

Hilarious as always.

[The Herald]

I cried that was so funny ... but for some reason when Zodd was talking about flying off with the bed I didn't think about Aladdin, I thought Neverending Story. You should do something with that maybe. Plus kudos on keeping the growly voice for the song.

[Istvan]

That song was wonderful. Excellent job as always, hbi2k.

[lon3vvolf]

IMMA IMMA IMMA IMMA IMMA..............
JUST MIGHT

MIGHT JUST

BERSEKS

GONNA GONNA GONNA GONNA....

BERSEKSY

http://cgi.ebay.com/Berserk-Guts-Slan-G ... 240%3A1318

Damn... give me your imput, gonna offer him $500... in a couple of days when I think this over.

GONNA GONNA GONNA.....

*goes to get a clean set of pants*

[dialdfordesi]

Damn, it's already up to 740 bucks!

[The Herald]

If anyone wants the Dragonslayer I made for the cosplay competition (for which their professional photographer really liked) they can have it. I start the bidding at $10, plus shipping and handling.

[lon3vvolf]

I bought that Slan & Guts statue... right before I had to spend another $700 on my car... Guts damnit!

If it comes in and I'm still around I'll post some pics.

[Shizuka]

I've never really been into statuettes or action figures, but I do love my Guts and Griffith plushies. I even use the Guts plushie as a good luck charm during exams and cuddle it sometimes when I go to bed. Too bad too much love is making him fall apart