Impressions....

finally the original anime released on dvd.. this is the first anime that everyone pretty remembers.. its the first classic anime movie..

the picture is fantasic.. i can see the movie in a whole new light.. the colors are very vibrant.. almost too vibrant.. and the added effects are subtle enough to make it look that much better...

plus the sound.. on the new dub the added sound effects make the movie so much more enjoyable.. very ripe sounding tire squeals.. i love watching the new dub.. although..

a word on the dialogue.. well.. we finally get to listen to the japanese to wonder what excellence sounds like.. and, to me, every characters seems to have that stereotypical japanese voice.. they all sound the same.. but what i found even more disturbing was how different it was from the original english dialogue everyone remembers...

very very different... the kids voices, are actually kids voices now.. instead of elder scratchy dehydrated voices... kids are kids.. i found that interesting why the original dubbers would change that.. and the same goes for the council's voices ..

next is the script compared to ye 'ole english dub.. i really wonder who translated akira but when Orion released it in the states.. one distinct part i remember is when the council is talking about the budget.. in the 'ole dub, they blame the colonel for buying the huge olympic statue, where as in the new dub (and the jap subtitles ) the council is merely stating that the olympics are this year and they needed funding for it.. has the japanese language revieled some kind of new word or something.. or are people from over a decade ago that stupid... it boggles the mind...

something i find also disturbing about the new dub is the casting of popular voice actors for the roles of Kaneda and Kei.. the voice actors whom also did Vash and Meryl from Trigun.. i thought that was somewhat cheap.. but it turns out their voices aren't that bad on these bodies.. although Vash took a little getting over.. the voice does match up..

speaking of Kaneda.. they seem to pronouce his name correctly now.. along with the overpronoucing of Akira..

welp.. lastly i must comment on the extras.. who damn.. they went out of their way to get as much as possible on this disc.. the entire storyboard plus the musicclip plus the director interview.. you can easily spend hours looking through everything pioneer has compiled on there.. its very VERY well done.. salute

the SE metal case is very sleek.. having it on my shelf against my other Dvds makes it look so prestegious.. its like its saying i'm better you.. and i can hurt you, but you can't hurt me... it attracts fingerprints to well though

- Dyre - 02.26.02