Hayao Miyazaki's The Castle of Cagliostro Blu Ray on April 28th 2015 (1 Viewer)

Discotek Media is releasing their Blu-ray verison of Miyasaki's The Castle of Cagliostro on April 28th.



While the specs have not been mentioned with today's announcement of the release date, there is every reason to believe everything they just released on their DVD a few months ago will be included.

For more information visit Discotek's site here:

http://www.discotekmedia.com/blog/


The Castle of Cagliostro Blu Ray $29.95 retail price

I would assume we will have to order directly from them,

http://www.discotekmedia.com/store.htm

which I am happy to do, as I want to support them, as they are doing a much better job of being mindful of the original language tracks and correct subtitles over the *other* company releasing Miyazaki Blu-rays in region A.


Discotek Media's December 2014 DVD release of this film included the following:

• 1992 Streamline English dub
• 2000 Manga Entertainment English dub
• 2000 Family Friendly English dub
• All new English subtitle translation
• 1980 Theatrical subtitle restoration
• Commentary with Reed Nelson
• Original Trailers
• Opening and Endings Collection
• Translation notes
• The main movie also has the original Japanese opening (The scenes during the opening credits were botched a previous release from another company.)

The final artwork is still pending, but the here is what Reed Nelson suggests the final packaging might look like:

Looks good enough, although the first picture shows the slipcover art and the "cover" shows the classic poster--May end up being a collectors' reversible cover?

And for those anime-illiterate on the board, the reason it's not from the *Other* Company is that it's an early work that predates Studio Ghibli by about six years, but it's still a lot more fun than Howl's Moving Castle.


And I still say there was never a better real trailer for the movie than that YouTube 007 mashup:

My Blu-ray arrived today. I am looking forward to finally seeing it with the preferred dub (Yes, sometimes I like the dubs.), the fixed opening credits, and Reed's commentary track.

Ejanss said:

And for those anime-illiterate on the board, the reason it's not from the *Other* Company is that it's an early work that predates Studio Ghibli by about six years, but it's still a lot more fun than Howl's Moving Castle.

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Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind also predated the founding of Studio Ghibli. However, the reason that one is now owned by the company is because the original production company that owned that film, Topcraft, went bankrupt a year later. By then, Miyazaki had founded Studio Ghibli and decided to buy out Topcraft, both out of mutual business interest and because Miyazaki's sentimental attachements since he had originally conceived and created the story as a manga earlier.


Studio Ghibli, for a variety of possible reasons, was unable to do the same with Castle of Cagliostro. The separate trademark on the Lupin III franchise may have been the biggest hurdle, assuming the company ever attempted ownership of the film.

Mark Walker said:

My Blu-ray arrived today. I am looking forward to finally seeing it with the preferred dub (Yes, sometimes I like the dubs.), the fixed opening credits, and Reed's commentary track.

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Unfortunately the film has been substantially degrained (as is the new Japanese Bluray), and it's of much inferior quality to the rest that have been released. (I'm talking about the Japanese silhouette series Blurays)

I finished watching it a few days ago and just popped in my DVD for comparison. I am not an anime expert by any stretch, but the Blu-ray is superior in so many ways, not the least of which that we have an extensive variety of audio and subtitle tracks to choose from, and the opening credits are full motion and not the collection of stills on my previous DVD, nor the weirdly edited credits on my UK Blu-ray.


I also noticed immediately that the halo issues (likely from edge enhancement) around Lupin's eyes were gone on the new Blu-ray. (I only did an A-B comparison through the end of the opening credits.) The colors are richer and yes, the film has been de-grained, but not to a degree worse than the scrubbing of Disney's animation catalog.


Reed Nelson, who operates a Lupin website, offers a super-nerdy audio commentary, which added to my understanding of how this film fits into Lupin III's catalog of films, shows, and comics, and I am incredibly glad it was included.


The video quality is not up to Disney's best, but the quality in terms of the care and attention paid to the audio choices, a new subtitles track that is the most accurate yet, and the restoration of the opening credits, make this all an easy "Yes!" answer to the question, "Is this an upgrade from the previous DVD?"


All this and a $14.99 price tag at Amazon makes this a no-brainer purchase for me.

Konstantinos said:

Unfortunately the film has been substantially degrained (as is the new Japanese Bluray), and it's of much inferior quality to the rest that have been released. (I'm talking about the Japanese silhouette series Blurays)

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JoHud said:

Studio Ghibli, for a variety of possible reasons, was unable to do the same with Castle of Cagliostro. The separate trademark on the Lupin III franchise may have been the biggest hurdle, assuming the company ever attempted ownership of the film.

Click to expand...

Although ironically Disney DID have the dvd rights to the two Miyazaki TMS theatrical films (Cagliostro and the Sherlock Hound reedit) in Japan a few years ago,