[EVA] Amateurism vs Professionalism in Anime Distribution

[Aaron Clark]

I don't have much to say other than I think the release of D&R and EoE are
two of the most incompetently produced DVDs I own.  The only other DVD I
own that is anywhere near as bad as them is the original Honneamise DVD. 
Guess who put that one out as well?  I was very enthused in 2006 when they
announced they would be putting out a remastered DVD from Renewal.  It
never happened, and they lost the license.  I can't wait for a decent R1
or a Bluray.

And over the years, I did consider authoring myself my own DVD from the
Renewal release.  Never happened, college got in the way.  Damn college.

--Aaron

> While I understand the list may have an aversion to discussing the topic
> of piracy, I feel that some recent experiences of mine might merit
> discussion. This concerns Evangelion, but also anime distribution in the
> west in general. Hopefully, this discussion will not be too offtopic.
>
> Recently, a hard disc with someones "stash" of films and TV shows became
> available to me. Prowling around their collection I spotted a "rip" of
> "The End of Evangelion", and frankly I was shocked by the level of
> quality that I saw.
>
> We are all aware of the extremely poor quality of the Manga release of
> End of Evangelion. The Renewal release, while superior, was released
> only in Japan and contains, to my knowladge, no English subtitles or
> dubbing. Apparently a group called Zhentarim some years ago decided to
> rectify this. This group has taken the Renewal footage and Japanese
> dialogue, and painstakingly re-edited the manga DVD English subtitles
> and dialogue so that it fits alongside the redone footage! The result is
> a release which in quality and scope is over and above any officially
> distributed English offering of the End of Evangelion that I'm aware of.
>
> The list of changes is show in full here(There are no download links at
> the site, which appears to be defunct)
> http://www.zhentarim.net/zx/shownfo.php?nfo=zx.end.of.evangelion.renewal.v3.nfo
> This is just some guy from the internet..... Particularly pertinent are
> his comments on the Manga subtitle crew in his summary.
>
> Apparently the same group has also gone through the same process of
> reediting Renewal footage for the entire series as well. Coming from the
> region 2 DVD release region, I have to say that the revelation that
> unpaid amateurs have released such high quality conversions of Renewal
> comes as a slap in the face. At some expense, I have purchased the
> official region 2 releases of the series, which turned out to have a
> less than stellar quality. Here's and old thread discussing my woes with
> the official release (with pictures)
> http://forum.evageeks.org/viewtopic.php?t=795
> The biggest problem was telecining which at some considerable effort I
> eventually managed to filter down to an acceptable level. I've also
> encountered this very same problem with other movie releases, such as
> the Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children DVD, which I can definitely
> confirm was of a lower quality than the rips I have seen of it.
>
> I have to say that it is a black mark on the entire anime distribution
> industry in the west when unpaid amateurs working in their own time on
> the internet can, consistently, release higher quality conversions of
> Japanese animes for free. Is there anyone at the tiller of this
> industry? I've spent over 200 euros purchasing the whole series of
> Evangelion and I could have gotten a much better product, and saved
> myself considerable money, time and effort, simply by grabbing a torrent
> made by technically minded fans who have probably never seen the inside
> of studio!
>
> I apologise if this rant breaches mailing list etiquette, but I'm
> genuinely interested in people's opinions on this. What are your
> opinions on the anime distribution industry in the west? Is it in need
> of a serious overhaul, or is it in danger of becoming obsolete
> altogether? How have things managed to get to this point? Is this a
> market failure, or some other systemic problem? Will there ever be hope
> for fast, high quality, official anime releases from Japan to the West?
> --
> Evangelion mailing list - To unsubscribe, visit
> http://eva.onegeek.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/evangelion
>
>