Akira Bluray Review
Feb. 25th, 2009 10:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
athelstanentWell six weeks ago I pre-ordered Akira on Bluray. This was pre-surgery, and just after I got my tax returns. So I decided, even with trying to save money (medical bills bring new meaning to this, but I would be retconning to bring that into the mix now), to order Groundhog Day and Akira. Well, Akira arrived today. Here is my review.
Akira is one of my favorite movies. When it came out in 1988 the production was ground breaking. The animation is 3D like in effect and creates a vivid and detailed world. The sound track... I will not digress into how amazing the music is and how little of it makes it into the movie. The plot is hard to follow. It took me about 10 viewings to get a good grasp of it. So watch Akira for the animation and the production and see if you want to stay around long enough to figure out the plot.
Now to the latest bluray release. The sound mix is the best ever released. It is the first film to release a 5.1 192kHz/24-bit sound track. Checking the bit rates when I paused the movie, it was averaging 15 Mbit a second for the audio. Reading the notes the movie was remixed in a way to preserve the sound up to 90 kHz. The care in the sound track shows. This is the first thing I've ever played on my system that justifies the cost of it. The video quality is top notch, but really shows the limits of the original elements. I could tell when the original animation was grainy. To there credit they encoded it all, flaws in all. There is no real way to fix it with out reanimating the entire thing.
Even if you are like me and bought the VHS and DVD releases, it's well worth it to pick up the bluray. Hang on to your DVD as it has more special features that are not on the bluray. Though the bluray has the entire storyboards.
Akira is one of my favorite movies. When it came out in 1988 the production was ground breaking. The animation is 3D like in effect and creates a vivid and detailed world. The sound track... I will not digress into how amazing the music is and how little of it makes it into the movie. The plot is hard to follow. It took me about 10 viewings to get a good grasp of it. So watch Akira for the animation and the production and see if you want to stay around long enough to figure out the plot.
Now to the latest bluray release. The sound mix is the best ever released. It is the first film to release a 5.1 192kHz/24-bit sound track. Checking the bit rates when I paused the movie, it was averaging 15 Mbit a second for the audio. Reading the notes the movie was remixed in a way to preserve the sound up to 90 kHz. The care in the sound track shows. This is the first thing I've ever played on my system that justifies the cost of it. The video quality is top notch, but really shows the limits of the original elements. I could tell when the original animation was grainy. To there credit they encoded it all, flaws in all. There is no real way to fix it with out reanimating the entire thing.
Even if you are like me and bought the VHS and DVD releases, it's well worth it to pick up the bluray. Hang on to your DVD as it has more special features that are not on the bluray. Though the bluray has the entire storyboards.
