[Kuraze] 老人Z / Roujin Z (BD 1080p H264 Hi10p FLAC AC3)

Film Information

Video

Filters used:

WhiteBalance, KNLMeansCL (for chroma noise removal), LSFmod, FineDehalo, aWarpSharp4xx (chroma sharpening only), Hysteria, AdaptiveGrainFactory, BalanceBorders

Encode Comparison vs. Source

Audio

Subtitles

Language | Style | Format | :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: | English | Styled Dialogue (Modified A-FanRips) | ASS | English | Styled Signs/Songs (Modified A-FanRips) | ASS | English | Official | PGS | French | Official | PGS | Italian | Official | PGS | German | Official | PGS | Dutch | Official | PGS |

Notes:

A fresh and hopefully, as of now, definitive release of this lesser known work by Katsuhiro Otomo. The 2011 Manga UK/Kaze BD remaster suffered from lackluster authoring resulting in several problems. The original disc video bitrate was overly compressed, which yielded poor film grain retention and stability. This can be observed in this comparison of sequential frames highlighting the errant inter-frame blurring. In addition, odd vertical stripe patterning and general macroblocking artifacts were also present in some darker scenes. Fine adaptive grain-matching was employed to address these issues. Slight dehaloing and very weak luma sharpening was also applied to treat edges and a combination of UV sharpening and noise reduction was applied separately to the chroma plane. Finally, the footage exhibited a subtle dingy/sickly appearance which when examining known white-points by sampling their measured component RGB values throughout the main portion of the film confirmed a persistent faint greenish chroma cast which has been reverse-equalized to a neutral white balance to alleviate said bias. See comparison screenshots.

Subtitles utilized A-FanRips's release as a base and were overhauled with significant QC (re)typesetting signs, correcting some errors, adjusting timing and splitting certain lines to improve flow, adding several missing lines and TL notes, restoring honorifics and context-sensitive forms of address, etc. Also the ending theme Hashire Jitensha (Run, Bicycle Run) has now been fully translated with associated karaoke added. A Signs/Song-only track for dub viewers as well as retail sub options for those that prefer them are also included.

Trivia: Mangaka and illustrator Eguchi Hisashi (Stop!! Hibari-kun!) who was the character designer modeled the female lead after his own wife and former idol Mizutani Mari. This film also marked the debut assignment for the late Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue, Paprika). There is some discussion over the title's production history starting out as an OVA before transitioning to a theater release ala Project A-ko. Evidence in some of the original cels and an open-matte trailer suggest a larger 4:3 presentation on the film reel may exist though all home releases to date including this one are cropped widescreen.