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Princess Mononoke DVD: No Japanese
Robotech_Master writes: "Nausicaa-L list-owner Michael Johnson spoke to Buena Vista and confirmed it...due to fears of reverse-importing and piracy, the August 29 Princess Mononoke DVD will have English and French audio, but no Japanese. I've written an article summarizing the situation and what concerned fans can do about it." Update by Emmett: The link is currently busted (again), but there are some informative posts in the comments regarding this. After seeing Corn Pone films like 'BAD,' I don't watch dubbed anime. Even though I've seen Princess Mononoke in the theater, I'd rather watch it in Japanese. Battle on, Otaku.
Since there has NOT been a Japanese-language, region-2 DVD of PM for the Japanese market, the release of a US (region 1) DVD which can be enjoyed in all three ways I just described is problematic to the people who will eventually distribute the PM R2 DVD in Japan.
Here in the US PM only did small art-house-type business - less that $30 million IIRC. So it comes down to pissing off a relatively small market of anime fans, or risking the revenue that will be provided when the most popular domestic film in Japanese history makes it to DVD in its home country.
Then there's the other issue - the fact that the powers-that-be in Japan (Buena Vista Japan to be specific) don't think they can trust the region encoding mechanism to enforce international market segmentation. This is doubly ironic, since the main reason for that nasty MPAA-DeCSS legal fight is (presumably) the DVD industry asserting its rights against people who want to do things like unraveling region encoding.
Hopefully, this is just going to be a Princess Mononoke thing. I think the main thing people are on about (go look at Ain't It Cool News for an example) is that this is going to affect all the other Miyazaki titles (Kiki's Delivery Service, My Neighbor Totoro, Laputa/Castle in the Sky), and NONE of them will get the "proper" DVD treatment (look at "Grave of the Firefiles" for an example of a well-done anime-on-DVD).
First, take one dub-only Mononoke DVD and DeCSS it. Be sure to handle the disc with latex gloves, to avoid a Macekbacter infection. (It gives you the worst kind of strep throat, and you sound. like. you're. reading. everything. from. a. book.)
.VOB files. Upload to your favorite high-bandwidth 0day m0v13z site. Presto, a release with Japanese audio!
Then get an import copy of the Mononoke LD. Rip its AC-3 SPDIF data stream using an AC-3 RF demodulator and a PCI AC-3 input card (no, I don't know where to get such a beast).
Then, using a DVD authoring suite (available from the usual 0day wAr3z sites), merge in the new AC-3 audio track. Don't forget to strip region coding and clear the Macrovision flag. (You're not licenced to set the Macrovision flag, are you? Of course not!) Mix liberally, then bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. No, wait, that was the cake recipe.
Then simply re-write a DVD-R with the new
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
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--Hey Doctor Jones! No time for love!
This is absolutely amazing.
Princess Mononoke is the most popular Japanese movie of all time, bested only by Titanic in terms of tickets sold in Japan.
Now, I want everybody here to consider this:
The United States, which overall had a surprisingly lackluster response to Mononoke's release in theatres, is going to be getting the DVD version first.
Europe, too, will be allowed a viewable copy.
But not Japan. Those people aren't not good enough for their own movie, whose voice actors(consistently better than anyone the rest of the world puts forth for Power Rangers duty) will find themselves stripped out like so much Soviet Revisionism, replaced with the smooth veneer of Hollywood Stardom.
My respect for the Japanese will actually diminish if only me, a twenty one year old white guy sitting in Silicon Valley, sees this as more of a cultural and sociopolitical slap in the face to the millions of Japanese people worldwide than anything George Lucas could have ever done to incur Geek Wrath delaying the Star Wars Episode 1 DVD "a bit longer".
If there's one nice thing we'll get about this, it's that attempting to regionalize markets--particularly through technical means--just became known as an excuse for depriving a culture of its own heritage, and has been exposed as a dramatically anti-consumer tactic.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
I only caught the end of a fan-subbed copy of Mononoke Hime, and haven't seen Disney's version, but I heard from some people who ought to know that Disney cut a small amount of material from the original Japanese version because it was a little too bloody for their taste.
I'm curious as to how this would affect audio tracks on the US release of the DVD, since I'm assuming it will be Disney's slightly editted version of the movie. I'm sure Disney could make a bit of money by releasing a "Special Edition" DVD with all the footage, the original Japanese audio, and their audio (cleverly editted around the additional material, of course).
Personally, if I have the choice I'll go for a subtitled version, as I'm sure most anime fans would. However, I've heard good things about the Disney version, so I'd love to have a DVD with both.
Don't believe me? Click h ere for the Nausicaa.net listserv message in which I first announced the donation (and challenged others to match it or do likewise...sadly, nobody has come forward to do that yet), or here for the AnimeOnDVD article. Of course, you still have to believe I will actually send the money once I get it--but if I don't, I'll completely screw up my good reputation online, and that is a thing I value and cherish, as I've been around since 1992, help moderate a newsgroup, and so on.
I'm proud to be able to do this to give back to a site I so respect and cherish. Would you care to match the funds I donate, palo0019? Or perhaps write a similar article and donate the proceeds similarly? Anyone else?
When the article is available, I hope you'll click on it and help out Nausicaa.net by a dime. It might also be nice if you'd look at some of the other articles I wrote, including one on Jon Katz, that I will be keeping the money for, but that's entirely up to you. :)
--
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
David Jessen
c/o Buena Vista Home Entertainment
350 South Buena Vista Street
Burbank, CA 91521-4691
--
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
I guess this goes to show yet another way that region-coding can screw customers in multiple markets. In this case, there is obviously demand in both Region 1 and Region 2 markets, but since the folks that serve Region 2 aren't ready to ship their copies, the folks in Region 1 have to suffer too.
This is a load of BS. Without region coding, everyone would be able to get the full edition when it was first pressed. The only reason not to serve the demand is to artificially raise prices by artificially limiting supply -- eg. gouging the consumer.
Region coding is just a thinly veiled collusive agreement between manufacturers to divide up the market ahead of time to reduce global competition and therefore artificially inflate prices. They claim its to better serve each market without damaging other markets, since each region can afford different prices, etc. etc. etc.. Sorry, but really that's saying "With the status quo, we think we'll make more dollars than if we allow the markets to level themselves and let natural market forces actually determine prices."
No sir, I don't like it.
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
Well, actually CD, laserdisc, and media prices have been at least two to three times what you'd pay in America ever since I can remember. I believe it's because of the higher cost of living they have over there.
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Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Slashdot, while many of its readers are into anime, probably isn't the best place to get news about anime DVDs. I find the following two sites most helpful in documenting daily developments in Anime, Animation and DVD. They also have reviews of almost all the anime that's been published on DVD as well...
AnimeOnDVD.Com
DVD Animania
You should never take life too seriously - You'll never get out of it alive.
I've heard from a smaller studio that it wasn't practical to advertise heavily in other countries until they had an idea of how the film had fared in the US, and whilst that might be true for cinema I see no reason for enforcing it on videos and dvds
In the UK I get the very strong feeling that it's just so that, like everything else they can charge us more. Here we pay in the region of $25 for a DVD! I do hope that the internet can bring some conformity to world prices... it's just crazy that it's cheaper for us to have a british film shipped to us on dvd from the usa!? Think of the environment! </treehugging>
Now what I really want to see is petrol/gasoline being available over the internet (ready for download into your car) so I can get some lovely cheap american gas :)
Just out of curiosty has anyone else come across the UK dvd version of the film 'Human-Traffic'. We thought they'd come up with some wickedly clever way of stopping DeCSS from working, only to discover that they hadn't even bothered to CSS it in the first place!?? It certainly made me wonder just how dedicated the film companies are to stamping out piracy - is this commonplace?