DVD Review HTF REVIEW: Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind: Recommended (1 Viewer)

[DaViD Boulet]

NAUSICAA

Of the valley of the wind

Studio:Disney Year:1984 RunTime:117 minutes Aspect Ratio:16x9 encoded 1.85:1 OARAudio:2.0 DD Japanese (original sound mix), 2.0 DD English (dub mix) Subtitles:English CC, English SubsSpecialFeatures:2-disc set with "Behind the microphone" featurette, Original Japanese Theatrical Trailers, Birth Story of Studio Ghibli Featurette, Complete-film storyboard... ReleaseDate:Februrary 22, 2004






Feature...


One of Hayao Miyazaki's early works, Nausicaa demonstrates a very impressive film for its time. I remember seeing this Nausicaa on American television as an adolescent and the impression that it made. My memory of the film was one of a dark, imaginative, and somewhat grotesque vision of a future world, and seeing this film for the second time twenty years later leaves me equally impressed. While not quite as refined or mystical as some of Miyazaki's later films such as Spirited Away, Nausicaa intertwines grandiose imagery with a worthy story; Fans of Miyazaki or Japanimation should take time to add this wonderful film to their repertoire if they haven't done so already.

In a theme not uncommon for Miyazaki, the story centers around a few staple elements such a strong heroine figure, strange and other-worldly creatures of mythic proportions, and a quest upon which rests the fate of many. Princess Nausicaa inhabits a future on Earth risen from the aftermath of mankind's abuse of the natural world. Pollution from past industry and warfare have given rise to a whole new ecosystem of flora/fauna evolved to live and feed on the toxic waste. The images and quite haunting, and vastly impressive. Keep reminding yourself that this film was produced in 1984 and was a ground-breaking statement of artistry for the time.

English Translation...

Disney has preserved in-tact the original 2.0 Dolby Surround Japanese-language mix on this DVD presentation. In addition, they have provided a newly-recorded English dub for American Audiences (sound quality comparisons will appear in the technical area...this discussion is regarding content). While purists, including myself, usually wince at the thought of listening to an alternate/translated audio track when it comes to classic Japanimation, the English dub on this disc (and Porco Rosso) is exemplary: Every care was taken by a very talented group to provide a first-class translation with English Dialog carefully worked to match the on-screen action and lip movements of the characters. Just to give you a clue, the voice talent of Patrick Stewart, Uma Thurman, Alison Lohman, and Chris Sarandon are just a few of the actors responsible for the voice-overs. In this case, I'm comfortable with enjoying the luxury of the English dub for a variety of reasons:

[*] The performances of the voice-over talent is first-rate and "fits" the spirit of the feature film.[*] Reading the subtitles takes the viewer's attention away from the lush visuals, which is not what the director intended.[*] The blocky/yellow subtitles mar the visual aesthetic integrity of the film and are often difficult to read when overlaid against complex background animation. Again, this is not a scenario the director intended for the viewer.[/list]
Yes, purists are formulating their well-crafted response to my suggestions. And I don't mean to start a debate or suggest that watching a feature film with its original audio track isn't a laudable goal for those who intend to go all the way. I only mean to point out that compromise is inevitable no matter which audio selection is made, and in this particular case, I find that given the quality of the English dub, that it is the compromise I prefer to choose. Please keep discussion on this point civil and respectful.

Note: Both English closed Captions and True subtitles are provided on this disc. When I turned on subtitles, the default was the CC track. It wasn't until enduring quite a bit of "Loud Crash!" and "Gun shot in distant..." that I realized there was a separate dialogue-only subtitle track. Purists intending on listening to the Japanese audio and reading the subtitles should take note so you don't needlessly find yourself aggrivated with the CC subtitle track.



Picture...

Something of a mixed bag. For the most part, those without large wide-angle viewing systems will be very pleased. The image looks surprisingly clean from print damage such as scratches and dust. Colors are rich and feel remarkably faithful to the "look" of the source animation and appear consistent with the color palette seen on other Miyazaki films and is free from the dreaded "red push" that garnered such controversy a few years back on Spirited Away. That being said, colors are very warm, and not quite as saturated as some other top-drawer animation transfers but it is my suspicion that the slightly subtle push of vibrancy is faithful to the source. Black level isn't quite as "black" as it could be, but shadow detail is excellent and dark images maintain integrity and subtle shading and never get "crushed". Picture detail is satisfying from 1.6 screen-widths though I can't help but feel it has been just slightly softened by some sort of filtering process. The image looks bold and objectively beautiful.

There are a few issues that keep me from getting too enthusiastic. The slight softness of the image...though still satisfying...makes me wonder what I'm missing that's in the source film elements (note: at 1.6 screen-widths, a properly-mastered DVD, though still not as detailed as real projected film, does not make you *wonder* what you're missing). Not too troublesome but worth mentioning. However, there are two areas for concern that bothered me more significantly: The first is edge-haloing. You can see it quite easily in some scenes from a 1.6 screen-width; Unnecessary and adds evidence of detail filtering (EE is often added by some studios as a matter of course to try to counter-act the perceived loss of detail from pre-compression filtering). The other artifact that I found troublesome is harder to describe, and I'll do my best by characterizing it as what I believe to be some excessive DNR (digital noise reduction) processing.

The picture of Nausicaa, has a strange, electronic cleanliness to it...one that resembles an image that had been DNR processed to remove excessive film-grain. Still images look very "clean" and clear...which is usual with DNR as most grain-removal algorithms use inter-frame comparisons to identify grain and determine what to remove and what to let stay. However, the moment the image pans...the background breaks up into a ghastly digital-crawlie dithering effect. This might go unnoticed on a smaller screen but on a large display it can become distracting. When Nausicaa first lands her glider at the valley of the wind...the "camera" locks onto a shot of the sky with the mountains below, and then pans downward toward the ground. Notice how the sky looked stable and cleanly depicted before the pan...than dissolves into a blur of digital dither as the image pans downward...and then suddenly locks and becomes crystal-clear again the moment the pan stops at its new location.

It's my suspicion that the film elements for Nausicaa were excessively grainy, and the studio chose to employ some sort of digital film-grain removal in preparation for the DVD presentation. Not having seen the original film elements I'm not going to judge this decision (which is conjecture on my part) too harshly, but I do want to point out a digital artifact in this DVD presentation that is clearly not film-based in origin. Given unlimited resources, LDI could have done their magic and presented a cleaned image free from digital artifacting...but the vast sums of money it takes to utilize those skills and proprietary algorithms were being utilized for Bambi...another review I will have posted shortly.

All in all a pleasing video presentation, despite a few artifacts I feel should be mentioned. Wide-angle large-screen viewers may notice Nausicaa's video shortcomings, but even at 106 inches the overall experience of seeing this 20 year-old treasure projected was quite a pleasure. Those viewing from distances greater than 2 screen-widths from their displays will likely be quite impressed.


Picture Quality: 3 / 5

:star: :star: :star:


Rating Rationale...

In the past I think I've been too ambiguous with my scoring or at least haven't applied it consistently from title to title, so I've endeavored to define my rating system more clearly to help make the scoring more meaningful (for all titles reviewed December 2004 and later):

Rating Key:

SCORE Description 1-2 An absolute abomination. Hurts to watch. Think "Outland" (scan-line aliasing, chroma noise, dotcrawl)-- truly horrid. 2-3 Has some serious problems, but one can at least watch it without getting a headache despite all the problems though you might try to talk your guests into picking a different movie to watch if you have a large projection screen. Think Cold Mountain. 3-4 Good or at least "acceptable" on a big-screen, but not winning any awards and definitely room for improvement if you view the image wide-angle (though smaller-screen viewers may be quite content). Think the first extended cut of Fellowship of the Ring...decent picture but still some HF filtering and some edge-halos. 4-5 A reference picture that really makes the most of the DVD medium and shows extraordinary transparency to the film-source elements. Non-videophile observers can't help but remark "WOW". Think The Empire Strikes Back or the Fifth Element Superbit (full “5†would be sans EE).





Sound...


No 5.1 Disney Enhanced for Home Theater mix here.

Nasuicaa was mixed in stereo (surround) and preserving that historic mix is a valid path to take. Had source stems been available for a discrete 5.1 mix that could represent the original mono (2.0) down-mix balance and avoid matrix processing, it would have been nice, but as long as you have good center channel (or force the mono playback into L/R if you don't). Heck...back in my laserdisc days I used to listen to that glorious 2.0 linear PCM through my high-end D/A converter in pure stereo and sit in the middle of the listening area to get a phantom center with my passive hafler-esque surround processor leaving the front L/R mains completely untouched... (still have yet to have a DVD audio experience that can compare).

Back on topic. Where this mix shows its age is not in its lack of multi-channel encoding but rather in the philosophy by which it was recorded: Dynamic range is severely compressed. Bass is present, but lacks the authority one would expect in a more modern, dynamic mix. The sound is also decidedly "flat" in presentation...no lush sense of depth and dialogue...whether English or Japanese...sounds "dubbed" and distinct from the imagined environment of the animated world (more on English/Japanese mix comparison in a moment). Effects also sound "canned" and lacking in real acoustic context. All of this makes me appreciate just how far sound-mixing for animation has come in the last 20 years. Don't go into this expecting to experience audiophile-nirvana.

Japanese vs. English?

Different. The biggest difference will be easily audible to anyone...the Japanese audio is presented in its "natural" state without (so it seems) additional tinkering by the Disney audio technicians...whereas the English mix has been noise-filtered to remove all hiss and all subtle sonic detail along with it. When will these mixing engineers ever learn? The Fox studio stripped the soundtrack of their Hello Dolly DVD of all its original detail and nuance, and Disney just did the same thing with their DEHT mix of Mary Poppins. Well...maybe it's not so bad. Oh who am I kidding...it's bad...maybe not so terribly bad that you'd run screaming from the room...but just do a quick A/B and it's pretty clear. Actually...the reason why it might not be so terribly bad in this case is due to an inherent flaw of the original Japanese mix...that compressed/flat mix is also a tad on the bright side. For those of you with audio systems that tend towards detail/brightness, you might actually prefer the toned-down sound of the English dub. In my system, it's about 50/50...the Japanese version sounds a tad bright (and it does have audible hiss...though that doesn't bother me) but the English version sounds a tad muffled...take your pick. Definitely do not apply additional THX EQ adjustment to the English dub...that might force you to have to turn back on the subtitles to understand the dialogue.

One quick note when doing your English/Japanese A/B back-forth A/B comparison...at times the English dialogue has been intentionally muffled to correspond with when the characters are wearing face-masks. This subtle context-shift is ignored in the Japanese...the speech always sounds the same regardless of whether the on-screen character is masked or not. I mention this because if you're watching a scene where characters wearing face-masks are talking and suddenly decide to switch back/forth to do your audio comparison you'll think "Darn! DaViD isn't kidding...that English dub is seriously muffled!"...it fooled me for the better part of my review until I caught on to the pattern. So be sure to pick a non-masked sequence to get critical to keep it fair.

The Hiss Myth:

Just how bad is hiss?
How many of you remember the days of audio cassette tapes? We used to make romance mixes on them and give them to our girl-friends...remember? Anyway, if you remember, those cassette tapes also had this thing called "hiss". What did we do? Well...we'd put them on our car stereo or in our walkman and start listening to music...then we'd think...between songs... "Hmmm...I hear hiss...let me hit my noise-reduction button to get rid of it." Remember what happened next? All the highs disappeared from the music. You forced yourself to listen for a little while telling yourself that it was supposed to be "better" because now it was free from "hiss". And then...before the song finished...you gave in and turned off the Dolby noise-reduction because it sucked the life out of the music and that was just too great a price to pay...and maybe hiss wasn't so bad. (professional analog recordings made using Dolby S are exempt from this analogy because they are recorded in tandem with Dolby S decoding...the variation in consumer-level Dolby B/C NR never permitted a high level of fidelity)

Nothing changes with historic audio recordings for your movies except that the techies playing with the knobs behind those $$$ consoles mastering the audio for your DVD don't know what music is supposed to sound like and so they just electronically muffle everything until all the hiss disappears. Did I offend anyone? Well listen to the 5.1 mix on Mary Poppins and the 5.1 DD mix on Hello Dolly and compare to the originals. That offends ME. I don't mean to imply that all audio engineers are tone-deaf, but it seems troublesome that these sort of problems happen at all...and studios should take measures to ensure that folks who know what good sound actually sounds like get to play with the knobs and levers at those mixing boards.

Rant over.

Overall...well on the one hand the audio is decent enough. On the other hand it shows its limitations in comparison with modern multi-channel animation mixes with much more dynamic range, surround activity, and attention to detail (on-screen acoustic context for instance...having sounds respond to the "environment" as if it really exists instead of always sounding the same). But at the end of the day this is the original mix that Miyazaki and his folks dreamed up for you...and you've got it here, faithful (the Japanese) to the original. The English dub, while portraying an exemplary performance (mentioned in my feature-review), suffers from the "Disney Noise Reduction" effect that seems to becoming standard fare these days (hand in hand with a little image filtering and EE), but is still listenable and those with bright-sounding audio systems may not find the dampened top-end objectionable given the bright-character of original recording.

Let me slap an arbitrary number on it:


Japanese Sound Quality: 3.5 / 5

:star: :star: :star:

English Sound Quality: 3 / 5

:star: :star: :star:






Special Features...


Two discs?!? Extras are there but seemingly light for two-whole discs. Here's the secret...that second disc is reserved exclusively for the "Storyboard" version of the movie...

Disc 1:

[*]Behind the Microphone: A cool featurette about the making of the English audio dub (no mention of noise-reduction...hehe). I had already decided that I preferred listening to English mix based on my preference for compromising the audio aspect of the film in favor of preserving the visuals (see thoughts in feature review). However, seeing the care that went into the performances and writing for this English mix just made me more resolved...input by folks like Patrick Stuart, Uma Thurman, Alison Lohman and others. Lots of interviews with the various voice-actors. Recommended...don't skip this bonus feature. (a similar feature exists on the Porco Rosso DVD)

[*]Original Japanese theatrical Trailer: I think I counted six. Yes hold on to your trousers...this Disney DVD actually has trailers for the feature film! They appear to be sourced from video masteres (dot crawl etc.) and are presented 4x3 lbx...most likely as they appeared on Japanese television. Trailers are presented with user-defeat able subtitles in original Japanese language. Fans will enjoy. (a similar feature exists on the Porco Rosso DVD)

[*]The Birth Story of Ghibli: An approximately 30 minute featurette about how the Ghibli film studio came into being with a healthy dose of Miyazaki film-history mingled in. Fans should really enjoy this...it feels "authentic" and was made for a Japanese audience...this is not a Disney documentary. The program is subtitled in English and quite interesting...and entertaining. [/list]
Disc 2:

[*]Feature Storyboard: This is rather interesting. The entire movie...replete with your choice of Japanese/English 2.0 audio and optional English subtitles is duplicated on disc 2 in storyboard form. Fascinating for fans, but probably not something most viewers will take 117 minutes to discover. I found it remarkable how similar the storyboard sketches were to the finished animation...I guess since it's all drawing anyway that's not so hard to do.

Coolest thing...this feature is presented in 16x9 encoding just slightly windowboxed on all four sides to avoid overscanning. (a similar feature exists on the Porco Rosso DVD) I am VERY impressed that the Disney folks presented these storyboards in 1.85:1 16x9 and I give them two thumbs up.


[/list]
All Together...

While slightly dated by today's animation (Japanimation) standards in terms of image and sound technicalities, Nausicaa is a majestic film and at long last has come to DVD. While there are a few image-quality flaws due to electronic/digital processing that might be noticed by wide-angle viewers, overall the picture is quite impressive and does good justice to animation from which it is derived. The 2.0 audio mix is not "demo quality" but faithfully reproduces the original Japanese soundtrack and provides the region 1 audience with a well-acted English dub providing an alternative for those who would rather view this film without subtitling. Extras are less numerous than one might expect for a 2-disc affair, but they are also a bit unconventional...and fans should be pleased with the feature-length storyboard presentation on disc 2 as well as the inclusion of original trailers. Nausicaa created quite a stir when it was first released theatrically in Japan...and the majesty of Miyazaki's vision is now available for you to own on DVD. If you enjoy Japanimation or have enjoyed other Miyazaki films such as Spirited Away, I recommend you take look at Nausicaa.



RECOMMENDED

 

[TheLongshot]

Thanks for the review David. It sounds like there's issues with most of the US Ghibli releases that Disney has done so far. I have the R2 version of Porco Rosso, if you want to put them head to head to see if there are any differences.

BTW, it is Patrick Stewart.

Jason

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Hey Jason...just caught that typo. I'd *love* to compare the Porco Rosso DVDs (working on my Porco Rosso review as I type...had hoped to get both of these out earlier but it took forever reviewing them and then Bambi came this weekend too!

email me and let's catch a time to hook up for the Porco Rosso A/B comparison...I'm around most nights this week if you're free...

dave

 

[ArthurMy]

What you haven't mentioned, David, is whether the English dub has more music than the original Japanese. I'll use Kiki's Delivery Service and Castle in the Sky as examples. In both, there is a liberal use of silence by Miyazaki. In the Disney dubs all silence has been eliminated and music added. To me, that's reason enough to never watch the English dubs. Disney's dictum to Hisaishi, when they asked him to rescore the film for the US dub was, audiences can't go two minutes without music. Stupid and ridiculous. In the case if Kiki's, they hired another composer to "play" Hisaishi's themes over any scene that was left silent, thereby totally subverting Miyazi's intent.

I will also say that I have heard others say the Kiki's dub is wonderful because of the wonderful voice talent. Well, voice talent aside, it's not wonderful. I'll boil it down to Phil Hartman as Jiji the cat. Wrong in every way, with lots of smart aleck "hip" jokes that are not a part of the character in the original.

So, what I'm saying is, you'll have to be a lot more specific as to the faithfulness of this dub (and Porco Rosso - a great film) - do they add music, is the dialogue close to the original or do they "add" touches?

 

[Paul_Scott]

much thanks for the timely review, David.
i had planned to make this one of the 4 dvds i was going to pick up today, but i think i'm going to hold off now due to questions about the PQ.



while i've only seen the eariler import on a vhs tape, that along with a copy of The Art Of Nausicaa i still have , both reveal some very intensely vivd hues-
especially in the range of blues.
the haloing would have been bad enough ( i find it EXTREMELY distracting when its on animated titles), but these other anomoly you bring up makes it just too much to rush out and snap it up.
i was fully aware that the first batch of Ghibli titles that Disney put out had issues, so i was pretty much expecting more of the same here.
and it looks like they didn't disappoint in that regard.
also, pretty lame loading the feature disc up with extra material, when they should have been on the second disc.
to me, thats just amazingly amateurish/inconsiderate planning/authoring.
y'know i almost get the feeling they are slightly degrading these releases on purpose, just out of spite.
i know thats kind of a reach, but honestly- Miyazakis catalog just shames Disneys animated output of the last 10 yrs or so.
if i were them , i'd be kind of embarrassed


shame too 'cause i've always liked this one very much.
from the atypically dense manga, to the first chopped up import of the film (under the title Warriors Of The Wind).

 

[MarcoBiscotti]

I'm glad I bought my limited edition R3 set last year. I dont really care for the option of English dubs (though I do admit I was impressed by the new soundtrack on Princess Mononoke when I caught a screening at the International Animation Festival in Ottawa this past Fall). The only dissapointment is the lack of English subs on the extras, and the confusing menus on the bonus discs. But the extras don't sound too hot on these R1 Special Editions anyway so I don't really mind. Plus the image resolution and color timing is much more accurate on the R3 volumes.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Marco,

is R3 PAL or NTSC?

Paul,

Don't boycott a purchase just yet. If you want, hold off until others have had a chance to post their PQ impressions. What's your viewing system like? BTW, color saturation looks very much like what we see in Spirited Away. If you have that DVD and feel satisfied with the color...then you'll find it just fine with Nausicaa too. Blues looked satisfyingly saturated...I think that much of the painted artwork was just intensionally softer-toned in nature to reveal more subtlety...and the choice of palette (fewer primary colors in favor of pastels) is different than what you'd see in Finding Nemo, for example.

BTW, if for any reason someone decides not to purchase this title based on PQ concerns, I would encourage you to share your rationale with the Customer relations folks at BV. And if you purchase a title but notice an anomolie like EE that distracts you during viewing...let them know that too. Why not? If Walmart shoppers can call and complain about black bars on their TV screen why can't you call and complain about edge-haloing?

ArthurMy,

In all my back-forth switching I didn't notice *any* difference in musical score or "effects"...only different dialogue (and the noise-reduction I mentioned). I'll pay closer attention to that fact and listen again but so far all seems ok in that regard. Anyone get their hand on the disc yet and have a chance to check this particular point?



-dave

p.s. the EE on this title is there...but it's not horrendously bad...pretty minor. I would consider the Triplets of Belville to be an example of an animated title rendered un-watchable due to excessive EE (R1 version).

 

[Steve Christou]

Nice review David. I've never seen Nausicaa, but I've greatly enjoyed Miyazaki's other anime's, especially Spirited Away. I've ordered a copy, blind buy, well not so blind considering how effusive the reviews are for this film. I'm really looking forward to checking it out.


I can't stand people who tell me how I should watch a film, if the dubbing is atrocious than I will switch to the original language and 'read' the film. Otherwise I have no problem watching this dubbed.

 

[Rob Gardiner]

for another fine review from Mr. Boulet.

I am curious to know how this disc compares to the R2 and/or R3 version, but that won't stop me from picking it up today.

I agree with Arthur that it only takes one inappropriate casting choice to make the English dub, shall we say, "less than listenable" -- Phil Hartman in KIKI, Clare Danes in MONONOKE, etc.

I also agree that Miyazaki's use of silence is important. Watch the climax of KIKI when she re-learns how to fly on a broomstick
for the perfect example of this. I don't always need music to tell me what emotions I should be feeling, and Miyazaki understands that very well.

In any case, I look forward to all 3 Studio Ghibli releases today!!

 

[Paul_Scott]

ended up picking this up when i was in BB, despite my earlier protestations.
however i won't be cracking it open until i hear more feedback, and hopefully see some screenshot somewhere.
i'm not a big animation fan, but i do like this movie quite a bit, and i want to enjoy the dvd.

David, i've got an HT1000 and usually go with about a 72" wide screensize for 1.78/1.85 features.
not quite as large as what you project, but then i probably sit a bit closer than 1.6x.
on live action features, haloing has to be pretty extreme before i get really rankled (a good example would be Warners phosphorescant Giant). but its a different story with animated titles because there is usually a sharply defined black line around any object thats being animated.
and to see a white line constantly ringing the black i find to be just supremely annoying.

on the subject of dubbing, if it were live action i would much prefer to hear the original soundtrack.
however with animation its usually a non issue for me- this is of course assuming the english track is at least competently directed/cast/performed/produced.
i'm not really big on hearing identifiable celebrity voice talent though.
kind of a distraction.
but i would never blanketly dismiss an English language dub for a film that was originally 'dubbed' to begin with.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

"i'm not really big on hearing identifiable celebrity voice talent though."

Good point. Just for the record, the English voice-dubs never really draw attention to themselves...i.e., you don't find yourself going "oh...that's so and so doing that voice" while watching the movie (at least I didn't).

Paul, the EE on Nausicaa is a tad more obvious (to me) than what we're seeing on most other Disney animated titles...but still nothing as severe as GIANT or Triplets. Most folks won't notice...but those wide angle viewers like you/me might see it from time to time. BTW, though I *noticed* it...it didn't destroy my pleasure of watching the film, so I hope that helps.

-dave

 

[Woo Jae]

Silly question but what -are- the three Studio Ghibli works being released today?

Nausicaa, Porco Rosso, and what else?

 

[Edwin-S]

The Cat Returns

 

[Woo Jae]

Thank you, Edwin-S. Good seeing you on the anime boards

 

[LorenzoL]

Thanks for the review David. I hate to admit it but I have never seen Nausicaa before but based on the movie reviews and having loved Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, I'll buy it blindly.

 

[TheLongshot]

Well, I have been recognising Patrick Stewart's voice in the trailers I've seen, but that's unavoidable when it comes to him. I also recognised Cary Elwes' voice in The Cat Returns as well, but his voice fits the character so well that it doesn't bother me.

My personal feeling is that I default to the OL for most things, because even tho subtitles are a compromise, I feel it is less of a compromise, particularly when the English cast does a huge departure from the original part. (Phil Hartman in "Kiki's Delivery's Service") There are some cases where I do prefer the dub (Princess Mononoke, for example.), but that's rare.

Also, a mini-review of "The Cat Returns", since most on here probably haven't seen it. I think it is B-Level Studio hibli, but that's better than most animated features. I think it is a lot of fun, and the english cast seems to nail it. (Haven't listened to the OL yet.) I'd say pick it up.

Jason

 

[Dana Fillhart]

Favorite. MovieFilm. Of. All. Time.

Many folk here who know me will confirm that. Just look at my sig - I've had that same strip down there for going on 2 years, and it ain't changing any time soon.

Nausicaa has been my favorite film since I first saw the butchered English-dub video back in '89 or '90; nothing else has come close ('til Return of the King, which I think, put in the context of the whole Rings trilogy, just barely equals it). It's not that I think it's the best film ever made, it's just that it resonates so powerfully with me that nothing else has been able to shake it. Funny how a string of hand-drawn cels and some 2-channel sound can affect one so deeply. I've seen a couple others from Miyazaki, and I must admit Spirited Away affected me pretty strongly, but Nausicaa still holds a certain magic and epic scope that all of his other works just haven't equaled.

I'm ecstatic Disney has finally opened its vaults on the Studio Ghibli titles, and they've put a good amount of care into this title. Thank you, Mouse, for doing something very right in the past year.

 

[Joe Cortez]

I couldn't agree more. What a time to be an animation fan.

 

[MarcoBiscotti]

R3 is NTSC, David... and according to several review sites (of which I thoroughly researched prior to purchase), this beautifully packaged limited Hong Kong collection presents all the Studio Ghibli films in the absolute best image quality.

Here's the link to Play-Asia's listing, though I'm sure a quick Google search on the R3 collection (possibly DVDBeaver as well) would turn up several in-depth reviews.

http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-...i-70-973.html#

Yes-Asia listing:

http://global.yesasia.com/en/PrdDept...id-1003693536/

DVDTimes:

http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=12113


you can check out a comparisson review of Princess Mononoke here...

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCom...ncessmono5.htm

It's one of, if not my most prized box set in my collection.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Wow. Those comparisons make the R1 versionof Mononoke look pretty poor next to the R3 version. I plan to do a comparison of the R3 version of Porco Rosso soon and will report any differences observed. I just may have to invest in the R3 set

BTW, from where did you order it?

Just got Porco Rosso review posted:

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...postid=2580770