According to Sankaku Complex (Probably NSFW) along with the release of Evangelion 1.11, there will be a Blu-Ray release of The original TV series.

Sankaku Complex wrote:Additional releases of the TV series’ latest digital remaster for DVD and Blu-ray will begin on May 27, starting with episodes 1~6.

Thanks for this. I'd have never found the new Tsuruya "Sand Canyon" otherwise.

Excuse to get a blue-ray player and FINALLY buy something better than the original release.

You can now see the individual scribbles on the lines! The wrinkles in the animation cells! You can even see Rei's smile in episode 6!

C'mon, there's gotta be a point when people enjoy the old crisp hand-drawn anime feel rather then the new obviously CG animation feel.

I completely disagree on that preference. When you get this high res on traditionally drawn animation such as this, it only enhances the flaws.

I'm probably gonna stick with DVD for Neon Genesis Evangelion. I recently watched the Gunbuster movie on Blu-Ray and while the picture was crystal clear the little flubs and errors in animation were distracting.


With Evangelion being the series it is any little issues in the series (like the already dusty and dirty glass that shows up already in frames on DVD) the only way to make it Blu-Ray perfect is an almost 100% digital clean up.

Which means of course Gainax is going to reanimate the series with today's anime styles for Blu-ray.

I hate to break it to you guys, but Evangelion was shot of 16mm. Most films that would translate over to High Definition would be 35mm. If they do release Evangelion on BluRay, you'd be getting slightly less than 1/4 the video quality of a conventional BluRay disc. You would in effect be paying another chunk of change for the same thing that is basically what you already have, only with slightly better upscaling, slightly better resolution, and slightly better image due to having less compression (in theory).

Evangelion on DVD: 100%
Evangelion on BluRay: 125% (AT BEST)

35mm film on BluRay: 100%
16mm film on BluRay: 23% (roughly)

If the Sayain and Freeza saga of DBZ is going on Blu Ray then I don't see why not other animes like Evangelion can't go on Blu Ray. Any chances of ADV flims puting the series on Blu Ray in the USA?

Guyver Spawn wrote:If the Sayain and Freeza saga of DBZ is going on Blu Ray then I don't see why not other animes like Evangelion can't go on Blu Ray.

That's flawed logic. Being suitable for BluRay has very little to do with age or popularity. It really depends on what film stock it was shot on. If DBZ was shot on 35mm, it will transfer to HD on BluRay well. But Eva on the other hand, being shot on 16mm will not provide adequate resolution for an HD transfer.

My understanding is that Gainax shot Evangelion on 16mm (which was cheaper) as a cost cutting measure. They did however shoot the intro animation on 35mm, because it was short, and would be used in all of the episodes. That's why it looks cleaner on DVD than the episodes themselves. Also, the original 16mm master for episode 16 was lost, so they had to use an internegative from that episode for the DVD masters. That's why that episode looks kind of blurry.

I'm fairly certain that The End of Evangelion was shot on 35mm. That would transfer well to BluRay. However, the added quality might make the uber bitch fight look slightly crappier.

Thanks for the info Monkey. I never really thought about it but the 35mm credits do make sense. They have a bit more spark than the show itself.

Like I said before, I'm sticking with DVD for Eva simply because the strenuous conditions under which the show as made only gives the viewer so much leeway until the flaws really start to distract from the work. Already on DVD you can pick up little flubs like dirty glass and some frame issues. On Blu-Ray such flaws would only be enhanced and new ones would most likely come up.

Once again though, fun to read about the magic of 16mm and 35mm. Especially in regards to Eva. Been meaning to do an animation on 16 again but it's such a pain.

I ain't familiar with film making or stuff like that, but what's the point in making a blu ray verion of an animation series? The quality is already good in DVD; how much can it be further enhanced in blu ray, given that it's something drawn (unreal)?

Maybe it'll be worthy for those who have a cult of NGE merchandise but not for me

The Eva Monkey wrote:Also, the original 16mm master for episode 16 was lost, so they had to use an internegative from that episode for the DVD masters. That's why that episode looks kind of blurry.

Yet another reason why I hope Leliel will appear in Rebuild.

tinmeigut wrote:I ain't familiar with film making or stuff like that, but what's the point in making a blu ray verion of an animation series? The quality is already good in DVD; how much can it be further enhanced in blu ray, given that it's something drawn (unreal)?

Animation has been done on computers since the turn of the century because Fuji stopped making the cells that were used for animation (drawn by hand, layed out, filmed). Although Eva was done the old way, and the only thing they can do is to take the original cells, lay everything back out again, and film it on a larger format, much of the digitally animated shows benefit (some more than others) from higher resolution. I watched Gin'iro no Kami no Agito (2006) at 1080p and it looked stunning. Lots of series over the last few years have been broadcast at 720p, and the difference is definitely noticeable compared to the same episode at standard definition.

Ornette wrote:Eva was done the old way, and the only thing they can do is to take the original cells, lay everything back out again, and film it on a larger format.

As I understand it, in the case of Evangelion, that is not possible, as the original cells are no longer available. Otherwise, they would probably have done that for Renewal. Can anyone confirm that? I know they "repainted" cels for some things, which would imply that they re-made the cels from scratch, right?

A lot of the fixes were done digitally, but there are some scenes which were reshot from repainted cels.

http://www.evamonkey.com/platinum_vol4_introduction.htm

Whatever the case, if Gainax wanted to do a BluRay release of Evangelion, they would have to reshoot all of the original cells, or recreate the frames digitally at higher resolution, otherwise the BluRay's quality would be lacking.

Ornette wrote:Lots of series over the last few years have been broadcast at 720p, and the difference is definitely noticeable compared to the same episode at standard definition.

"Indeedly doodly"

Animation benefits from high definition as much as live action in a lot of cases. The technical advantage that animation has over live action is in encoding, as compression seeks to find the most efficient way to change only the pixels which need to change, and animation has nice flat areas of the same color, which encodes well.

I think people are missing the point in this thread. Eva is going to be on blu-ray. This means all the little errors are going to magically disappear because that's how awesome Sony is when it comes to making electronics. In fact, the blu-ray player goes back in time and retrieves all the original cels to play in high def, as well as sending back an HD microphone to record the voice acting at 320 kbits/sec. You guys are all pessimists.

CorporalChaos wrote:I think people are missing the point in this thread. Eva is going to be on blu-ray. This means all the little errors are going to magically disappear because that's how awesome Sony is when it comes to making electronics. In fact, the blu-ray player goes back in time and retrieves all the original cels to play in high def, as well as sending back an HD microphone to record the voice acting at 320 kbits/sec. You guys are all pessimists.

Does it also make waffle fries?

Blu-ray EVA -- everyone gets to see the appearance of the Tree of Life during 2nd impact in high definition video.

Will it be matted widescreen like the Dragonball Z orange bricks Funimation is putting out?

I mean, Wings of Honnemeaise (sp?) got an HD transfer (both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD), but I really can't see viewing specks of dirt in 720p or 1080i/p all that spectacular.

I just looked into buying a Alienware laptop and I'm proud to say I'm getting a Blueray drive in it so I can buy the Blueray discs.

So, has the whole series been presented in HD, or are we gonna wait longer than usual for a Blu-ray Release? Because I NEED THIS SHOW (AND EOE) ON BLU-RAY RIGHT NOW!