Akira [Blu-ray]
![Akira [Blu-ray]](/images/Akira-Blu-ray-B001LMU182-L.jpg)
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Movie Reviews of Akira [Blu-ray]
Movie Review: The way its ment to be seen
Summary: 4 Stars
Perfect transfer, wish i had seen it in cinema but this the closest it gets. I have an average av receiver and the sound is just incredible, what can i say, awesome picture quality for such an old movie and ubsolutely unreal sound. Recommended to every fan of animated movies on blu-ray. Oh, and there are no extras, very sad...Movie Review: Great remaster of the original classic. Terrible presentation and extras
Summary: 4 Stars
Visually and audibly this is the best Akira you can get. However presentation wise the special edition DVD release that came out a while back blows it away, as it has a barren menu with little extras and a boring static splash page. The movie deserves five stars but I wacked one off for presentation.Movie Review: Overpriced, Under Producing. Anyone wanna buy my copy?
Summary: 3 Stars
I thought this would be a great step up from my DVD special edition (tin box). The only thing better was the picture. The sound was terrible. The Dolby 5.1 Japanese was too soft in places and too loud in other places. Sometimes I couldn't hear the voices very well. Yes, I made sure it was the correct Dolby 5.1 track and not Dolby TrueHD. The Dolby 5.1 English track was totally new with new actors... What's wrong with the old English actors? NOTHING! Why on earth did they change the English track? I'm so used to the English voices this annoyed me! I traditionally watch Japanese animes in Japanese, but Akira is the only anime I enjoy in English.
Stay away from this Blu-ray unless you really want the better picture -- maybe play the special DVD on another player and sync the audio.
Note: I don't have an HDMI sound system (Logitech Z-5500), however, every other Blu-ray movie plays fine and I expected this to play fine, too.
Movie Review: The first edition that I'm passing on
Summary: 3 Stars
I own a Laserdisc [Japanese] and DVD [English] releases of Akira and I was thrilled to see that there was a Blu-ray release now available. I was looking forward to revisiting as much as possible the original theater experience I had when it played in art houses on a large screen. The meticulous frame by frame painted artwork on Blu-ray must be visually impressive. Unfortunately I'm going to pass on this edition in spite of what must be the best video transfer due to what sounds like inferior voice acting.
Hopefully another edition will be released in the future. My money is waiting for that release.
Movie Review: Ah, blu-ray...you promised so much...
Summary: 2 Stars
I got this because I am an audiophile and Akira fan. Unfortunately it won't play on my LG BH200. It just spins the disk with a blank screen. I think it's because of the reported English/Japanese option at the beginning, but I'm only guessing. I've also heard the LG300 has a problem and the Samsung 5000 combo player. While I would love to totally blame LG, they are only partially at fault for not updating their players for every single movie that comes out. Ultimately, it's the disk's fault. I've thrown hundreds of disks at my player and never had a problem. This is a major disappointment and I hope can be resolved by a firmware update by LG. But who knows when that will happen? This is the pain of blu-ray, where standards change with every new release. I guess I should have gotten a PS3 after all...
Hopefully I can amend this review in the near future.
EDIT: A work-around! For me and my Lg BH200 I wait until it sticks on the black screen and then hit stop and stop again, then press 'disc menu'. This sequence will take me to the main menu where I can select to watch the movie. Though very irritating, I can at least watch the movie now.
And now for the review:
Playing the Jap TrueHd track I noticed how BIG the sound was. Huge 'in my room' sound. Clean sound too, with no harshness at all. But, it was only the front 2 speakers. Even though I bought a high end receiver (marantz sr7002) last year, it cannot play 5.1 channels in the 192khz that Akira puts out. I've never had a way to test this until now, but now the unfortunate truth comes home.
Here's the good news: Even in Stereo it is my preferred track. It's so rich, even without the surrounds. I must warn you that I do have two full-range front speakers, so if you're using little cubes I don't know what it will be like for you.
Bad news: Now, here's where it gets interesting. I thought I might listen in EnglishHD to get surround. It was just acceptable. What I mean is it sounded fairly harsh compared to the JapHD and the dynamic sound was pretty flat, anemic. I switched to JapDolby compressed and the sound nearly blew me out of my chair in comparison. The Dolby in Jap still sounds like a compressed sound track, but except for the brittle sound on the top it actually sounds BETTER than the EnglishHD. I heard instruments I'd never heard before. Further investigation revealed a totally new remastering for the Japanese tracks that had not been done for the English track. All the new techniques applied to make the Japanese sound so good (HD or no)had not been applied in any way to the English track. What this means is it's a slightly higher bitrate than older English releases, but is not that much better and in fact may be hampered by the space taken by the Japanese tracks. After hearing the lossy Dolby in Japanese you almost get the sense that English was an afterthought. This is somewhat disappointing, but true fans hate the pioneer dub anyway and are still crying over the loss of the original strangely translated Streamline version. I'm trying to wean myself off the English track so I can enjoy the JapHD, even in stereo. It really is that good. But I think it could have sounded 90% as good if it had been 24bit/96khz which nearly every modern receiver can play in 5.1. That 10% in quality cost me and probably 90% of every other customer their 3.1 channels of sound. So, it's future proof, but I'll have to wait some time before I can hear it completely. The picture is much better than DVD but it's not perfect. Those expecting a Disney-like cleaning of the master might be disappointed to see some noise here and there. But this is minor. Overall it's still the best release to date, and probably the best will ever be. I'm just disappointed they couldn't figure out a way to make it more compatible with select machines (see first review) and make it so people don't have to buy new high end equipment this year or next to hear it in 5.1.