Lupin Red Jacket '77 Show getting an SD-BD Set from Discotek.
- Thread starter GATSU
- Start date
You can pre-order the set through MediaOCD, which again, does imports of DT stuff. https://bsky.app/profile/discotekmedia.bsky.social/post/3ms2stldrxk25
Here. https://mediaocd.com/product/lupin-the-3rd-part-ii-sd-blu-ray/
Here. https://mediaocd.com/product/lupin-the-3rd-part-ii-sd-blu-ray/
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Yay! If it's not for personal issues, would have been so down to get it.
The thing that I'm wondering about is "freshly mastered" when it's a SD set. As mentioned before Discotek were not happy with the condition of the masters used in the Japanese and Italian Blu-rays, believing for years to be an upscale however it's fair to say an early HD scan done quickly when technology has vast improved since then (16mm masters by their nature are softer than 35mm, even if one episode was 35mm but lost over time, that being episode 8 since it was shown once in cinema) and the cost to rescan all 155 episodes is too out of reach. Makes you wonder whether it is literally ported over the Discotek DVDs because of technicality and matching the episode count on the discs (meaning yes it would feature typos and translation mistakes unless checked), gone for the original Japanese DVD "HD master" source instead of the Japanese Blu-ray downsamples that they did or even going back to the old DVDs/streaming versions that looked either muddy or dark depending on episode but we won't know until it comes out. Another thing is the audio, no problem on the English side but the Japanese side curiously says Dual Mono. 1-98, 100-102 were in mono while 99, 103+ were in stereo however some of the latter are lost so I don't know why it is Dual Mono... Probably a technical thing. This does have an advantage of a lower price because of less discs (I think the Japanese is 20 discs while the Italian is 18 discs or something like that, do have the latter) meaning it takes up less space, knowing the quality isn't "great" and probably a case of releasing now otherwise they will never get the chance. After all once 2 Lupins and the rest of the TV Specials get released, there's nothing much else for Discotek to do and by the time Sentai's license for Part 6 and Zero run out, it's likely that physical media would be gone and there's little on the 4K front for Lupin (Mamo Discotek rejected, Cagliostro's released, Babylon is down to Toho so really the 1990s TV Specials, Missed by a Dollar, Lady Liberty, Nostradamus and Dead or Alive that can be done, again the market might be gone/Discotek close by the time the Japanese side get around to it, not even The Immortal Bloodline is in 4K AFAIK). Thinking about it, would anyone buy a 4K Blu-ray of say Island of Assassins, Tokyo Crisis and Missed by a Dollar if it exists?
Still for the price point, having all the episodes and finally legally include those outtakes (yes those ones), you can't go wrong. Oh and I really like the covers, both versions. Like the disc art too even though only Zenigata, Goemon and Disc 4 Fujiko do look like they come from the early days of the show with Jigen to a smaller extent. Disc 3 kind of looks a bit Monkey Punchy with Lupin's sulk...
The thing that I'm wondering about is "freshly mastered" when it's a SD set. As mentioned before Discotek were not happy with the condition of the masters used in the Japanese and Italian Blu-rays, believing for years to be an upscale however it's fair to say an early HD scan done quickly when technology has vast improved since then (16mm masters by their nature are softer than 35mm, even if one episode was 35mm but lost over time, that being episode 8 since it was shown once in cinema) and the cost to rescan all 155 episodes is too out of reach. Makes you wonder whether it is literally ported over the Discotek DVDs because of technicality and matching the episode count on the discs (meaning yes it would feature typos and translation mistakes unless checked), gone for the original Japanese DVD "HD master" source instead of the Japanese Blu-ray downsamples that they did or even going back to the old DVDs/streaming versions that looked either muddy or dark depending on episode but we won't know until it comes out. Another thing is the audio, no problem on the English side but the Japanese side curiously says Dual Mono. 1-98, 100-102 were in mono while 99, 103+ were in stereo however some of the latter are lost so I don't know why it is Dual Mono... Probably a technical thing. This does have an advantage of a lower price because of less discs (I think the Japanese is 20 discs while the Italian is 18 discs or something like that, do have the latter) meaning it takes up less space, knowing the quality isn't "great" and probably a case of releasing now otherwise they will never get the chance. After all once 2 Lupins and the rest of the TV Specials get released, there's nothing much else for Discotek to do and by the time Sentai's license for Part 6 and Zero run out, it's likely that physical media would be gone and there's little on the 4K front for Lupin (Mamo Discotek rejected, Cagliostro's released, Babylon is down to Toho so really the 1990s TV Specials, Missed by a Dollar, Lady Liberty, Nostradamus and Dead or Alive that can be done, again the market might be gone/Discotek close by the time the Japanese side get around to it, not even The Immortal Bloodline is in 4K AFAIK). Thinking about it, would anyone buy a 4K Blu-ray of say Island of Assassins, Tokyo Crisis and Missed by a Dollar if it exists?
Still for the price point, having all the episodes and finally legally include those outtakes (yes those ones), you can't go wrong. Oh and I really like the covers, both versions. Like the disc art too even though only Zenigata, Goemon and Disc 4 Fujiko do look like they come from the early days of the show with Jigen to a smaller extent. Disc 3 kind of looks a bit Monkey Punchy with Lupin's sulk...
Lupin Central confirmed the liner notes will be ported over to the set. https://www.lupincentral.com/home/part-2-complete-collection-blu-ray-coming-to-us
Don't worry about it! Double dipping, triple dipping and even quad dipping is part of the physical media game. People have rebought DVDs, Blu-rays whether it's a remaster, a steelbook, a collector's edition or imported another release from another country just wanting to support a series. At least you would feel less regretful compared to the ones who bought Cagliostro on Blu-ray then later ending up getting the steelbook for the English dub with the current cast... That's more of a stinger on the wallet.
Besides those old DVDs can be a spare in case something happens and better to have some Lupin than no Lupin, the Part 2 Geneon DVDs have their differences that won't carry over and the last volume Thievin' Ain't Easy is worth quite a bit of money if you have that as it got a smaller print run compared to the others due to Geneon's implosion. There's no better picture of the cover online...
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I've been anticipating that Part 2 would get a Blu Ray release for the longest time and it turns out my anticipation was right all along haha
- Pronouns
- He/They
They did say they made some updates and fixes to the translation. So in theory, it should be improved. The DVD set actually had better subtitles than some of the later episodes that were online streaming already, but it sounds like they were going through to make updates.
Not sure about the visuals, but they usually aren't careless about that in the releases. I can understand if a full upscale wasn't really within the budget, but I doubt they'd make them look terrible. I guess we'll have to see!