Heisei Kamen Riders on Blu-ray?

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Heisei Kamen Riders on Blu-ray?

Post by takenoko »

I thought I was dreaming this, but I guess this is a real thing?

Starting with W.
http://wiki.tvnihon.com/wiki/Toku_Disc_ ... #July_2013

I'm guessing they'll do Decade after this. I wonder if they'll do the rest of them, from Kiva to Kuuga?
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Re: Heisei Kamen Riders on Blu-ray?

Post by locuas »

i don't think so. altough i think Decade may get it, i also think they will focus solely on the post decade series, with Den-o as the only possible exception.

why i believe this is, mainly, because it was during W that they started to be more self-referential to past series(and please,don't argue with me the "they are or they are not in the same universe" discussion) while the others are very self contained.
Of course, they could still sell them despite that, but i believe they think it could confuse fans(especially younger ones) and don't think it is worth the price. Also, while i don't think it should not be a reason why not to, i could see parents not wanting their childrens to see series like agito or kuuga

Unless Den-o's sales are pretty good, i don't think they will focus in past series too much.
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Re: Heisei Kamen Riders on Blu-ray?

Post by Revorse »

Sounds cool. I'd love to see some of the older Riders in HD. Especially Blade.
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Re: Heisei Kamen Riders on Blu-ray?

Post by PHurricane »

I've got mixed feelings about these. On one hand, it's great to see W get the Blu-Ray treatment. It was an awesome series, and it deserves to be officially distributed in the best quality possible. Plus, Blu-Ray as a whole tends to be more expensive than DVDs. However, from my rough estimate, the price-per-episode for the 3 Box Sets is actually a little lower than what you would have paid retail for the 12 DVD volumes, so it's a good buy if you didn't pick it up when it was first released.

From the perspective of a collector/consumer who already owns the DVDs, though, I find it hard to justify purchasing these box sets because it does not appear that any new/bonus content is being included on the discs. The mentality of a collector is usually to try and get one of everything (which is why re-releases usually sell well), but there's got to be a gimmick apart from the new format for such a recent series. Unfortunately, it looks like the bonus content is just the Delusion Diaries and the episode discussions with the leads - all of which were already included on the DVDs. Do they really have nothing else to add? Cut scenes? Bloopers?

Another concern I have is whether you're truly getting better quality with the Blu-Ray release. This question may sound stupid since I'm a little ignorant on this topic, but were they shooting in HD back when W was filmed, or are you just getting a rescaled picture from the same thing that was already released on DVD? If it's just a rescale, the quality would probably be worse, wouldn't it?

The bottom line is that, even though I pointed out that the box sets are a little less expensive per episode, it still adds up to be a nice chunk of change to pay out if you already have a full set. If they decide to work backwards from W to steadily release all of Heisei Kamen Rider, I think that would be a good thing for the fandom. I think they could probably get away with no new content for the older series (i.e. pre-Decade) since the chances of getting new sales would be higher and they would probably have to remaster some, if not all of those series.
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Re: Heisei Kamen Riders on Blu-ray?

Post by Lunagel »

From what I understood, they've been shooting in HD since Kabuto but they just haven't been broadcasting in it until recently. Also, the box set apparently comes with some cut scenes and extras, so it's not entirely the same as the DVD. For a collector of W merch, (and let's face it, W was a damned good series) I think it'd definitely be a good buy.
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Re: Heisei Kamen Riders on Blu-ray?

Post by takenoko »

From what I understand, they've been using HD cameras since Kuuga, so the raw footage should be HD at least, hence all the Heisei Rider stuff being wide screen.

In theory they could probably release all the Heisei series on Blu-ray and it'll be fine.

Kabuto was the first series to air in HD, it's just no one was capping it in that resolution at the time.

But I sympathize with phurricane. This was the same situation with Garo's Makai Senki... only the boxset was cheaper and had more stuff. It just made the fans really mad because it came out so quickly, which made it seem like they could have just created the bonus shit on a separate volume and released that.

Instead, they make you rebuy the whole series again (which already came out on Blu-ray, so there's not even the quality boost that W is getting). So that was a little bullshit.

I think the problem is that Japan's fans/maniacs kind of spoil the companies. There's an expectation that there's going to be a hardcore audience to cater to, so it seems like companies hold back some stuff to capitalize on these fans.
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Re: Heisei Kamen Riders on Blu-ray?

Post by PHurricane »

Good to know, about the HD/filming stuff.

And yeah, as long as there's some new features on the discs in addition to the alternate/higher quality formatting, I think there's room to justify the re-purchase. I hadn't seen any mention of cut scenes being included in the W box sets, but I'll be pretty stoked to see that.

The situation with Makai Senki is pretty inexcusable, but I guess there were enough people that bought into the new box set to make it a worthwhile risk (financially speaking) to alienate some of the fan base.
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