OFFICIAL SPC and KNT Boxsets to be released by Discotek Media!

[PizzaCatFan]

Am I late for the celebration?  Ah nuts!

None-the-less, when I read the news almost a year ago at ANN, I had to check the site probably a dozen times to make sure I wasn't having another dream.  Having followed Discotek's Facebook page and site thus far is proving that it's not.

All i can say is, about time.  ^_^.  15 years for me since I last saw it on an actual TV screen.  My anime viewing/collecting hobby has come full-circle once I get my paws on these sets.  KNT to sate curiosity, SPC for obvious reasons.

(PS: Been YEARS since I've been around here.  I was afraid I forgot my password, but sure enough, I remembered, thus here I am.  Introductory Post Is Here.  Glad to be back in the fold.)

[YoshiAngemon]

I have a theory about the delay of the English Dub release: Discotek may be trying to experiment, by trying to use the Japanese Video as a high-quality master, and change it around, so they can work in the English Audio, and recreate the experience as accurately as possible. But they'll need Saban Brands's help for that!

[cuchulain]

I have a theory about the delay of the English Dub release: Discotek may be trying to experiment, by trying to use the Japanese Video as a high-quality master, and change it around, so they can work in the English Audio, and recreate the experience as accurately as possible. But they'll need Saban Brands's help for that!

I really hope you're right; I'll be glad to to get SPC however i can, but it seems like it wouldn't be that difficult to re-cut the footage since it wasn't a censorship issue like with a lot of other anime that was syndicated.  EDIT:  According to the wikipedia page, there were some censorship issues, so maybe someone with more knowledge can clear that up as well.    

Just out of curiosity, does Saban Brand's still exist?  I was under the impression Disney owned all of their back catalog aside from the series whose rights had reverted, and that Saban no longer existed, but I may be wrong about that.

[felineki]

There are quite a few things cut from SPC. Some of it was potentially "objectionable" content, some of it was just jokes that were too difficult to translate. There were also a few minor instances of "digital paint", mostly to remove Japanese text. At any rate, recutting the KNT footage to match SPC would be a pretty big job.

I'm not sure about the rights issues around Saban.

[PizzaCatFan]

Yep, Saban Brands (aka, Saban Brands LLC) is actually the new name of the company under Haim Saban's helm.  Haim has regained possession of the Power Rangers and Digimon franchises, as well as taking over the CW network's Saturday AM kids' block from the ailing 4Kids Entertainment.  The old company that existed from 1984-2002 was called Saban Entertainment (International outside North America).  The whole history is kinda convoluted, but basically after milling about in first-run syndication and also running a block of shows on Nickelodeon in the late 1980s, by the late 1990s, Haim bought out The Family Channel and also took over the Fox Kids block (the Fox network themselves, owned by News Corp, wanted out of the children's programming biz by 1997...mostly forced by O&O affiliates to dump the block for local weekend / weeknight news, infomercials and local programming).  Long story short, aside from Power Rangers seasons and the Digimon franchise, the company fell on hard times, and Saban sold it in parts.  All successful properties at the time, Power Rangers and Digimon namely, went to Disney in 2002, and the Fox Family channel became ABC Family.  Anything leftover of Saban's anime and other projects, including SPC, were left to expire and revert back to their original production houses in Japan or elsewhere.

You can bet I'm sure Discotek is using the newly remastered prints that were used for the 2012 Japanese KNT box set for their Japanese audio/English Sub set that will be out this Spring.  I think part of the delay up to this point also deals with Japan wanting us to wait their turn.....they are very skittish with outside licensors releasing stuff too soon after their own dates due to reverse importation fears.  This happens a TON with anime BluRay releases...delays or outright cancellations ensue.

As for Saban's interpretation, I don't know.  Discotek is a small indie label that, I'm sure, does its best to get the absolute best quality masters for digital transfer.....first-gen if possible from the Japanese source....which will be the case for the KNT set, or very HQ 'broadcast' (on Beta-tape cassettes) masters if there are no first-gen tapes out there.  If the tapes have been prepped for digital broadcast, most of the grunt work is already done.  Even so, there's sometimes still the problem of transferring an analog (tape) source onto a digital (disc) format.  You wind up seeing all the imperfections of video.  This was done often in the early days of anime DVD releases with less-than-average results half the time.

If the delay is to get the highest-quality tapes for the English version, then I'm all for a bit of a delay.  SPC was edited two-fold;  1: for censorship (which for 1991/1996, was more lax for children's programming than it probably is today), and 2: to allow the required 9-10 minutes commercial time.  While it would be great for Discotek's folks to go back and timecode the Japanese tapes they have and partake in synching the English audio to the edits, this would be a time-consuming, not to mention expensive process.  Why do that work when Saban already did it 22 years ago?

Maybe Saban also has regained control of all its other former properties, but decided to shuffle SPC / KNT to Discotek, or maybe did a sub-license deal?  ANN's page and the Wiki article both show Discotek as the license holder, but then again, with the Digimon Complete Season 1 and upcoming 02 DVD sets, Saban's tag/logo is still at the end of those episodes, so obviously Toei and NewVideo had those masters lying around somewhere.  (Moot point as Saban, as I said, has regained formal control of all things Digimon.)

I spend too much time reading up on this stuff, but there you be.  

[cuchulain]

There are quite a few things cut from SPC. Some of it was potentially "objectionable" content, some of it was just jokes that were too difficult to translate. There were also a few minor instances of "digital paint", mostly to remove Japanese text. At any rate, recutting the KNT footage to match SPC would be a pretty big job.

I'm not sure about the rights issues around Saban.

Thanks for explaining that, felineki.  I remember reading up on it years ago, but we old fogies in our mid-20's tend to forget stuff.  If you don't mind, I was just reading the wikipedia page and it said that there were two unaired, dubbed episodes (that were pulled for censorship issues).  Were those shown in  Canada/Europe, and were they part of the torrent that was floating around for years?  Or is there potentially unseen SPC out there?  I hadn't heard of that before, but I've seen every episode that was part of the torrent, so I'm just curious.

[felineki]

The two episodes you're referring to were never dubbed, and hence only exist in KNT. Thus KNT has a total of 54 episodes and SPC has a total of 52. However, the two episodes in question are clip shows (pure clip shows, unlike Candid Kitties and Big Cheese's High Defintion TV, which had some newly-made scenes), so you don't really miss much. They were probably dropped from SPC simply because they weren't really necessary, and in fact the first of the two seems to have been an odd spur of the moment thing that came about due to the change in KNT's time slot early in its run; it was even omitted from the Japanese VHS releases. The latter of the two does have some amusing voiceovers from the Big Cheese and Jerry Atrick's Japanese counterparts added in, though.

[PizzaCatFan]

I had always known about those two clip EPs.  I didn't know that first one came so early in the series' run because of a time-slot change.  Otherwise, it's pretty well established that these episodes did nothing to further the plot along.

SPC was pretty much run in full everywhere except the U.S., where 12 episodes (one clip show, "Cats Cop Cartoon Careers", and 11 regular episodes) went un-aired.  This 'was', I believe, due to censorship conflicts at the time.  I also need to correct myself on that matter......I'm honestly not sure if censorship has loosened up at all.  Not that it makes much difference, as there isn't much out there anymore for network and syndicated children's blocks on broadcast anymore.  Everything's gone to CN, Nick, or The Hub.  Some classic stuff runs on 'retro TV' sub-channels in some markets, but nothing from the 1990s so far.

For those like myself in the U.S. who have been stuck with having to of seen those purposely-skipped-over episodes for a good many years as low-quality RealVideo files, that DVD set will be the first time ever we'll be seeing those in decent quality.  Same goes for the entire series, really.  Tsuneko's efforts (which I nabbed early last year, but deleted from my HDD since the official DVD announcement) have been the cleanest I had seen SPC up to this point.

[usbcheater]

I haven't been here allot due to toku and ponies keeping me busy.

Though I thought I should come back to express my happiness with these two dvd sets and ES Gokin Speedy (no sign of a pre-order on AmiAmi yet)
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vTtsLfyCkc" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vTtsLfyCkc</a>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vTtsLfyCkc
I also found this HD dvd rip on youtube just after it was announced. It looks so good I cannot wait to order it.  

[cuchulain]

That is from the same transfers (edit) Discotek should be getting, right?  I really can't wait for these sets...

[PizzaCatFan]

That is from the same transfers Shout Factory! should be getting, right?  I really can't wait for these sets...

I thought it was Discotek who has SPC/KNT.  Shout Factory! has the Power Rangers franchise I believe.  I stand corrected if I am wrong.

To the clip posted:  Considering this is a 1990 period anime, and in 'Youtube' quality, that transfer looks quite clear, though it looks like the image here is stretched and 'letterboxed'.  Will look quite good on a decent-quality TV with a player that can properly up-convert DVD, though let's not expect HD-quality.  It will be 4:3 and, pending your setup is correct, 'pillarboxed' (bars at the left / right).  I have a few older 1980s-era anime and TV shows (Ranma 1/2, Maison Ikkoku for anime, and the 1980s TV drama 'Dallas' among them), and those looked clear and vibrant on my TV, so I'm expecting like-quality with SPC.  I've got my setup where it plays the formats properly depending on the source material.  I've tried in the past watching older shows with 'fullscreen' productions are stretched to fill my widescreen setup.  In short, terrible-looking to my eyes....stretched faces and what-not.

I notice with cel animation, whether Western like Disney, or from Japan, the quality depended on money spent and release format.  The more spent (like on something like Escaflowne), or on the many OAVs and movies released in those days, the quality was often-times better than any typical weekly TV series that were aired.  Long-running shows just often looked average to below....choppy animation, jitter in scene-changes, etc.  Some studios (GAINAX) were notorious for basically running the money well dry to the point where all they could do were still shots.

That said, again, I say this looks quite nice.  It'll be nicer running off a BluRay / DVD player via HDMI on a regular TV.  I wouldn't pass final judgement on a YT clip.

[cuchulain]

>_< sorry, I meant Discotek.  I mixed them up because I just bought some DVDs from Shout Factory, actually...

[usbcheater]

To the clip posted:  Considering this is a 1990 period anime, and in 'Youtube' quality, that transfer looks quite clear, though it looks like the image here is stretched and 'letterboxed'.  Will look quite good on a decent-quality TV with a player that can properly up-convert DVD, though let's not expect HD-quality.  It will be 4:3 and, pending your setup is correct, 'pillarboxed' (bars at the left / right).  I have a few older 1980s-era anime and TV shows (Ranma 1/2, Maison Ikkoku for anime, and the 1980s TV drama 'Dallas' among them), and those looked clear and vibrant on my TV, so I'm expecting like-quality with SPC.  I've got my setup where it plays the formats properly depending on the source material.  I've tried in the past watching older shows with 'fullscreen' productions are stretched to fill my widescreen setup.  In short, terrible-looking to my eyes....stretched faces and what-not.

I notice with cel animation, whether Western like Disney, or from Japan, the quality depended on money spent and release format.  The more spent (like on something like Escaflowne), or on the many OAVs and movies released in those days, the quality was often-times better than any typical weekly TV series that were aired.  Long-running shows just often looked average to below....choppy animation, jitter in scene-changes, etc.  Some studios (GAINAX) were notorious for basically running the money well dry to the point where all they could do were still shots.

That said, again, I say this looks quite nice.  It'll be nicer running off a BluRay / DVD player via HDMI on a regular TV.  I wouldn't pass final judgement on a YT clip.

Yes you are correct about that, I assumed it was DVD quality because its the only KNT video on youtube that has a remastered look instead of looking like the encodes KNT used to sub the first 3 episodes. And this being the only one posted in 2012 I honestly thought I was right.


Also I should have posted the ED too
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-sOISVvOGU

[felineki]

ES Gokin Speedy (no sign of a pre-order on AmiAmi yet)

About this: I've read that for copyright reasons (Bandai still having merchandising rights, maybe?), the ES Gokin Speedy isn't being sold in Japan. Which would explain why it isn't listed on any Japan-based sites, even ones that are taking preorders for other upcoming ES Gokin figures. Most of the sites I've seen selling ES Gokin Speedy are based in Hong Kong, which is where the company making the figures is located.

[Speedy]

The new coverart for the KNT-box.

[KageReneko]

Not bad but having in mind how the japanese DVD's and other media are getting new art this can look a bit bland; the coloring should be a lot better with more effects and a better background... I hope this isn't the final option...

Do anybody know if this will include the spanish dub?

[ANE]

Well here is a post I thought I would never make here; my thoughts on DVD box set cover art...

I like the background patten on the new KNT...er I mean LNC box, with a nice clear picture of the three in stock promo pose 1. But yes, it does look a little "flat" so to speak, and a nice background of Edoropolis or something similar might work better, and then use the current blue pattern on the inside of the box. The SPC box, with our three heroes in stock promo pose 2 looks good, but again, it could do with something else in the background, and again I can only think of some Little Tokyo skyline or something. One quick change to make is the SPC logo needs a small black outline rather than the white one it has at the moment.

I just had a quick look back at the Déclic Images DVD boxes, and they seemed to have a bit more going on in them. I guess it's just a case of how much time and money Discotek have when it comes to cover art. They seem to be up for amending things, so they could be open to suggestions.

Overall, I'm just happy by their mere existence; in another set of circumstances this post would have been the single word "Squee!" set at 72 point. In magenta.

[felineki]

Do anybody know if this will include the spanish dub?

Everything I've heard so far only refers to Japanese and English, so I don't think the Spanish dub will be included. Which is unfortunate because from what I can tell there are quite a few SPC fans from Spanish-speaking countries that enjoyed that dub.

Also looks like they've revealed the cover art for the dubbed set, too.

[PizzaCatFan]

The Japanese set cover art is better IMHO with the blue BG.  The English set is good so far, but I agree, the logo/lettering needs to be outlined in black, not white, so it stands out better against the bright red / white BG.

Also take note that the KNT / LNC art is flat anime-style cel-art, whilst the SPC art, they seemed to have gone with an almost 3-d cel-shaded look to our feline heroes.

While I'd like the art to probably be a bit more 'active', it's just nice to see that this series is getting put out there.

Unlike the other players in anime distribution, Discotek seems to listen to its consumer base more actively, so we should probably get suggestions out to them ASAP.  They are slating the KNT set for Spring already.

[KageReneko]

Just add shadows and lights to the current art and I'll be happy...