As a new reviewer for the site, I just wanted to quickly introduce myself to readers. My name is Jonathan R. Lack, and I’ve been writing film and TV reviews for eight years now, much of that time spent at Denver Post subsidiary YourHub.com where I publish most of my work. Anime isn’t an interest of that reader base, however, which is why I’m excited to write for The Fanboy Review and share my interest in anime with fellow ‘fanboys.’ Enjoy!
 

 
Has any anime ever been released so out of order in North America? Collecting the original Dragon Ball series has always been an exercise in frustration, going back to the jumbled release of the 2-disc ‘saga’ sets and culminating in the overdue but welcome blue-brick season set releases. The release of the films made just as little sense. When FUNimation began releasing the movies on DVD, we got uncut releases in the extremely strange order of film 3, Mystical Adventure, film 4, The Path to Power, and finally film 2, Sleeping Princess in Devil’s Castle, which was simultaneously released in a “Movie Box” alongside the other two. Meanwhile, movie 1, Curse of the Blood Rubies, had actually been released much earlier in an edited-and-dubbed only release as part of the material FUNimation (teaming up with various other companies) released in an earlier, failed attempt to bring Dragon Ball to young American audiences prior to their release of Dragon Ball Z. Rights issues related to this period in the franchise’s history meant an uncut release failed to see the light of day on DVD until just recently, just as the first thirteen TV episodes didn’t get an uncut release until the season sets. But the DVD is finally here, completing the long, complicated, and largely jumbled release of the series in North America. That alone may be cause for celebration. Continue reading →

Eden of the East… a series that shows love of American film and hope for the future of Japan… and a guy who has misplaced his pants.
 

 
A 2009 series that is highly respected for many things, will it be as respected now that it has jumped across the Pacific? Continue reading →

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya… one of the more popular series of recent memory.  After three years the series returns with a new season.
 

 
After having such a well received first season that blew quite a few people away can season two possibly stand up to its predecessor? Does it need to? Or would a few extra adventures with fun characters be enough?  Guess we will find out… Continue reading →

A new company arrives with a series that has a bit of a following.
 

 
Toradora! is finally coming to the USA via NIS America.  Rather than just getting the vanilla treatment though, NIS is going the premium route for their anime releases.  Does Toradora! (last time I use the exclamation point…) end up being a good start for them? Continue reading →

Greetings viewers! The name’s Samuel Savage but I’m better known as PirateBeck these days. You probably haven’t heard of me before and considering my line of work is very different to that of a reviewer, I can’t honestly blame you. However, it’s something I’ve had an interest in for quite some time so Marc’s giving me a shot. Anyway, to cut the introduction short, I’m from the United Kingdom and while we may not get that many series released here due to many different licensing issues, we have been lucky enough to receive some exclusive anime releases, such as the upcoming Summer Wars and Professor Layton movies. So I’m here to tell you what’s worth importing and since it hasn’t been released yet in the USA, I’m going to touch upon a shonen oldie…
 

 
Space Adventure Cobra is the film adaptation of the manga series of the same name, originally released in the late 70s. The movie itself was released in 1982 and I believe it’s an adaptation of the entire manga story (don’t quote me on that). The UK disc was released in August 2008 and can be currently ordered from Amazon UK for around £3.99 ($5.95 as of May 2009). Is it even worth that? Let’s find out… Continue reading →

 
After looking at my review of Brotherhood on Blu-ray, some people may be wondering… why doesn’t the Blu-ray look pristine?  After all, it is a brand new series, shouldn’t it look glorious in 1080p on Blu-ray?  Funi even gave it the first ‘Native HD’ tag they’ve ever labeled with.  Is it really an upscale and they lied?
 
Let’s start with that.  No, it seems very unlikely that Funimation lied.  But then why doesn’t it look good?  That is what this article will explain.
 
For this article, I recommend clicking an image to see it at the full resolution.  All images in this article are lossless PNG files since image quality is of importance for this article (and due to it being based more on quality than on color there are no easy to view image comparisons, you’ll have to open the images and compare them.)
 

 
As you can see above, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood on Blu-ray doesn’t look like we expect it to.  So here is an explanation of why that is.
 
To start with, let us look at Brotherhood as it is stored on its DVD counterpart.
 

 

 
On DVD video is stored at 720×480 (480p.)  When someone is talking about an upscale, it is likely made from an image that looks exactly like this.  When you use an upscaling player these images are upscaled, a method of resampling the image and attempting to fill in problem areas by figuring out the colors around them to attempt to make it look its best at 1080p (based on your TV it may upscale to 720p or 1080i, but 1080p is the example we are using since it is Blu-ray’s resolution.)  When a company does an upscale, in most cases at least, they use an image that looks very close, but won’t have MPEG2 encoding artifacts (MPEG2 being the type of video all DVDs are.)
 
You may be wondering why those images look incorrect.  It’s because they actually have a digital ‘flag’ that tells your player to stretch them to the proper aspect ratio.  Here is a look at both caps stretched to be their proper aspect ratio.
 

 

 
Others may be wondering what any of this actually has to do with the Blu-rays.  Just giving background information and showing what they look like on the normal DVD as an example.
 
Having looked at the DVDs it is time to take a proper look at the same frames taken from the Blu-ray.
 

 

 
Once again, doesn’t look so great.  There is stuttering and some pixelation, not to mention edge enhancement. Details and some colors also don’t appear as vivid as you might expect. So once again, the question is why?
 
Based on looking at information both from its TV run in Japan and the Japanese Blu-rays, it appears it is because Brotherhood was actually animated at 540p.
 
As for why it was animated at 540p, no idea. There are many potential explanations: a lack of time or limited budget, among other possible reasons. Let’s figure out what the animation being 540p means overall.
 
It means that the Blu-ray doesn’t have the same level of detail that 1080p or 720p animation would.  It looks cleaner and has a bit more detail than the normal DVD does though.
 
The 540p number was found during the HDTV airing of Brotherhood in Japan and checked again when it came out on Blu-ray.  Based on playing with screencaps from the American Blu-ray, the same appears to be true here as well.
 
So what happens when we take the Blu-ray, and downscale it down to 540p?
 

 

 
Outside of a bit of edge enhancement and a few other things introduced seemingly during the upscale process from 540 to 1080, it looks nearly pristine.  So yeah, Brotherhood is 540p.
 
But Funimation labeled it Native HD… in fact, this is the first time they’ve added a label to indicate if the show is native or upscaled, so why does it say native when it is an upscale (not an upscale from DVD resolution, but a bit higher.)
 
It is because as far as anyone is concerned, it is 1080.  It aired in 1080i on Japanese TV and the Japanese Blu-rays were 1080p.  Funimation was likely given 1080p masters from Japan and may have had no knowledge of any of this (conjecture on my part) and even if they did, if the Japanese licensor says these are the 1080p masters, can’t really argue with them that much.
 
So Brotherhood’s 1080p Blu-rays are actually based on 1080p masters that are based on 540p masters…
 
But how do we know for sure Funimation didn’t just upscale masters themselves and slap the native tag on there to mislead people?
 
Let’s compare the Japanese Blu-ray with the American Blu-ray with a different screen cap than the ones I’ve been using.
 

 

 
The top is from the Japanese Blu-ray, the bottom is the American Blu-ray.  They are effectively identical.  The only noticeable difference is the American Blu-ray is brighter. Older (specifically analog) American and Japanese TVs have slightly different black levels (about a 10% difference.) Why is it still consistently done when Blu-ray and nearly all modern sets are digital nowadays and (as far as I’m aware) that brightness difference doesn’t exist anymore… I’m not the guy to ask about that because I have absolutely no idea.
 
The story of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood’s resolution ended up being a slightly more complex one than many people would imagine.  Not technically HD, but not a straight upscale from a 480 master.
 
You have to admit it is ironic and a bit funny that after many of us asked Funimation to label their Blu-rays that the first disk to get a label would have an odd twist to it.  Funimation definitely didn’t lie, but in this specific case, the contents aren’t what many of us would consider ‘Native HD’ either.  Although even that has become murky.  Quite a few HD games aren’t even 720p.  The recent ‘Call of Duty’ games are all 600p, Halo 3 is 640p, and the recent Ghostbusters video game was 720p on Xbox 360 but 576p on Playstation 3.  And all of those are labeled as HD games.  This is one people are going to have to decide yourself.
 
Do you consider Brotherhood HD or not?
 
If you’d like to read a review of the Blu-ray of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, we actually have one (it is actually what ended up leading to this article.) Feel free to have a read: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood- Part One (Blu-ray), Early Review
 

 

Fullmetal Alchemist – © HIROMU ARAKAWA/SQUARE ENIX, MBS, ANX, BONES, dentsu 2004. Licensed by FUNimation® Productions, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
 

 

One of the more popular anime and manga series of the past decade returns.
 

 
Yes yes, Fullmetal Alchemist returns.  Rather than a sequel to the first anime series, this new series is taking the true to the manga route.  Is Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood already a shining piece of steel in its first 13 episodes, or does it come up a little… short? Continue reading →

The franchise that will never die returns, but on Blu-ray in a new ‘refreshed’ version.
 

 
Yes, Dragon Ball Z returns as Dragon Ball Z Kai.  After stacks of releases in the USA, including the Dragon Boxes, is the modern refresh of Z on Blu-ray the new high bar for the series in the USA? Continue reading →

Hi, this is my first review for The Fanboy Review although I’ve been writing reviews for some time now on many other places, including my personal blog.
 

 
My name’s Michael, although I’m known online as Prede. I’ll be looking at a classic from TRSI/Nozomi, “To Heart”. Continue reading →

Back for yet another Blu-ray review: this time it’s Ouran High School Host Club.
 

 
Oh yes, it is finally time to review an upscaled Blu-ray.  Let’s take a look at if a non-HD Blu-ray is worth your time and money. Continue reading →