The Secret World of Arrietty

[Dacey]

Be careful not to get too political here!

Normally I don't, but when something is that far fetched, I think it's probably safe to post it without too much concern of it causing a "debate" here.

[estefan]

Do you think Fox News is going to complain about the science in Ice Age: Continental Drift?

I have a feeling they won't.

[James]

This has been way overblown in the press. It was one guy's opinion on a TV show. Yes it was somewhat nutty, but not completely wacko. Just as Fox News has a conservative bent, Hollywood in general has a liberal streak.

Why can't we all just get along!

[GeorgeC]

If you haven't seen The Secret World of Arriety and have the patience, just wait until the home video release in May.

It's part of the May 22nd next-batch release of Studio Ghibli titles on Blu ray in the US. I'm sure there'll be a DVD-only version but you might as well get the Blu ray version since it will bundle the DVD as well. (Standard Disney Blu ray policy.)

It's been announced that the Blu ray release of Arriety for the US market will have BOTH English dubs on it. (Not that it matters to me -- I'll probably listen to the Japanese audio anyway...)

Castle in the Sky (aka Laputa) and Whisper in the Heart also bow on North American Blu ray the 22nd of May as well.

[Whippet Angel]

Ah, good news! I can't wait to own Whisper of the Heart on blu. Such a beautiful film. ^___^

I really enjoyed Arietty. Not the best from the studio, but a sweet and solid little film. The only issue I had was that it ended rather abruptly.

EDIT: Oh yeah, then there was also that god awful pop song they inserted into the end credits. The tune was totally out of place, and the lyrics had NOTHING to do with the actual context of the film.

[Randall]

Arrietty Blu-ray review:
http://animatedviews.com/2012/the-secre ... -arrietty/

[GeorgeC]

It's been announced that the Blu ray release of Arriety for the US market will have BOTH English dubs on it. (Not that it matters to me -- I'll probably listen to the Japanese audio anyway...)

Yeah, I noticed that the final US release did NOT have both of the English adaptation tracks.
Licensing issue? I don't know...

Seems like at least a few of the Ghibli releases are being handled by a different company in the UK, NOT Disney. This is not the only time different English dubs have been done for the UK... Other anime features (including reportedly Project A-ko -- now THAT would be interesting to see a UK dub for!) also have alternate British English dubs.

(British English? Every time I read something online written by a British national, the spelling and syntax are almost identical to what I see written by Americans and Canadians! Even the British accent is sort of starting to disappear a bit and we're all sounding more alike... Frustratingly boring development!)

It's very possible that the Japanese Blu ray release could have both of the English tracks unless there's another licensing issue (again) since Disney has a hand in Studio Ghibli Japanese releases, too. I'll check into that... I doubt I'd pay $50 more for an audio track, though. I'm far more likely to buy one of the Ghibli films that's NOT being released on Blu ray in the US.

Too bad that pre-release info turned out to be wrong! I would have liked to have compared the two English adaptations -- not that I think either would significantly improve the film's pacing issues...

<SIGH> What is it about anime features and "deliberate pacing"?

[Randall]

Studio Canal handled the British dub for Arrietty, and I'm sure Disney didn't feel like paying for it when they had their own "all star" American dub.

The pacing was an issue for me too, as I said. But it went better for me the second time, knowing what I was in for. And maybe listening to it in Japanese made it more acceptable somehow.

FYI: Ben and I both alter our usual spelling for our AV writing to suit the largely US audience. Ben does use his share of Brit expressions, though, whether he knows it or not. And Canucks mostly speak like Americans, though naturally with certain regional expressions on both sides. I try to not make references to drinking pop (though Minnesotans will know what I mean), or wearing a bunnyhug (you guys call it a hoodie these days).

[GeorgeC]

This is from AnimeNewsNetwork where I got the original information about the Blu ray release of Arriety in Region A. The original article has been updated...

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/20 ... d-u.k-dubs

"Update: The "North American Edition" of Arrietty with the two English dubs will be sold in Japan under the Ghibli ga Ippai label. Disney has not specified whether the edition that it will sell in North America will also have two English dubs. Thanks, toru."

The Blu ray available in the US does NOT have the UK English dub... Only the UK release thus far has been confirmed to have the British/UK dub.

The current JAPANESE Region A Blu ray (available since late last year) also DOES NOT have the UK dub OR the American English dub.

What I quoted was confirmation that there IS a new Japanese Blu ray release planned for the future that WILL have both English dubs on it. Back in the 1990s, there were a few laserdiscs released in Japan alongside the regular Japanese-only LDs that had the English dubs for a variety of anime including Macross II and Macross Plus so this is not unprecedented. This has also been a practice with certain videogame RPGs which have also been designed International Releases. (Ironically, the "International Releases" only get released in Japan!)

Right now, only the UK Blu ray release with the Studio Canal label actually has the UK dub.
One of the cheaper international Blu ray releases, the licensed Hong Kong release, appears to be a straight port of the original Japanese Blu ray with no English audio language options.


P.S. -- I'm pretty much split on the American Ghibli dubs. I think most are fine -- better than the usual dubs from Funimation, Section 23, etc. -- but I am somewhat annoyed that the dual-English release for North America was incorrectly reported or canned prior to production.

I still don't think $40 is a legitimate expense for an additional audio track. The average import Japanese region Blu ray is averaging out close to $80-$85 with the current exchange rates! I'd only import what I absolutely want or don't think will ever show up on American shores... Otherwise, the situation is very ridiculous...! I have never seen regular prices like that on Japanese video since I've been collecting videos (which has trailed off quite a bit in the last 18 months).

I am NOT in love with the fact that Disney is putting Channel stars in music videos on all the major theatrical home video releases. Dates the video releases very quickly (who will remember these kids in 10 years?????) and there are still a lot of "Classic Disney" fans that like to keep the TV product separated from the theatrical/home video releases. I don't hate the actors for accepting the work and some of them have been cast fine in the roles but I've never been in love with stunt voice casting for animated features, either. (There are always exceptions -- James Wood has been uniformly good in VA since "Hercules" and I would think certain other character actors would be great in VA, too.) The people whose general career path is voice acting or do heavy amounts of VA as a sideline are generally much better performers in VA than stunt casts...

[Bill1978]

Australia's DVD/Blu-Ray release has the UK dub on it. And it's the only English dub presented. I plan to sit down this weekend and watch it.

[Jafar]

Australia's DVD/Blu-Ray release has the UK dub on it. And it's the only English dub presented. I plan to sit down this weekend and watch it.

Is the Australian release region free by any chance? Got myself the barebones US release recently since that rather goodlooking UK release was Region B locked

[Bill1978]

Unfortunately the Australian release is Region B. Not that I've managed to come across the Blu-Ray in my time. I've considered myself lucky that I found the DVD. I'm not sure if our Blu-Ray had all the UK extras though. The DVD only had Storyboards and Japanese Trailers. But now that I'v discovered that Australia has the same Blu Ray coding as the UK I may just pick up the UK edition.

[Jafar]

Well, I also remember reading somewhere that Madman Australia will release a Deluxe edition of Arrietty later this year featuring both the US and UK dubs. If they also include the UK extras, I would say it would be the one to go for!

EDIT: http://twitter.com/animemadman/status/2 ... 9251188736

[Bill1978]

Damn, I should have held out. I should have just rented Arrietty Barebones and save my money for Arrietty Deluxe

Thanks for the news Jafar, they pulled something similar with Ponyo I believe and of course I fell for that as well. Thankfully, my nephew and neice loved Ponyo enough that I ws able to give away Ponyo Barebones to them

[GeorgeC]

Well,

The deluxe Australian Blu ray should still be a lot cheaper than the Japanese edition!

There's two bits of good news...

One, multi-region Blu ray players DO exist... However, they WON'T help you with the DVD Region issue unless they deal with the PAL/NTSC video signal differences, too.

Bad News: Region A => Japan/US/Canada ONLY; Region A doesn't talk with Region B and vice-versa... Thankfully, multi-region Blu rays do exist and virtually ALL PS3 games are compatible across-the-board since Sony doesn't seem to bother with Region Coding on the game discs.... anti-copying is a different story!

The TV situation is pretty much taken care of in Europe. Most new European TV sets that dealt with SD were NTSC-compatible, too. Don't know the situation with Hi-Def or how they deal with SD material on HD TV. I know in the US that if you don't have equipment that handles/converts to at least 480p SD material looks AWFUL on HD TV sets. Solutions have been found for older game systems that could only handle 480p but most people that still have SD sets are advised to "keep them until they break" (or search for gently-used SD TV sets online, Goodwill, etc.) because SD material still looks best on SD TV sets.

Secondly, Hi-Def, as I understand it, is the same everywhere. (At least, in the non-Communist, non- anti-Western countries. China probably wants to set up its own system just like they did with homebrew DVDs...) You don't have to deal with the NTSC/PAL nonsense. We all run at 1920 X 1080, 1080p, 24 fps! (Unless your TV set is 720p but Blu ray players are set up to deal with that... At least the PS3's are since most PS3 games are still 720p max.)