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DVD Title |
Lupin the 3rd: Farewell to Nostradamus |
International Title |
Lupin
the 3rd: Farewell to Nostradamus |
DVD Length |
Original Length |
98 Minutes |
98 Minutes |
Company |
Year of Manufacture |
Funimation |
2005 |
Language |
Subtitles |
Japanese, English |
English |
Region |
Number of Discs |
1 |
1 |
Aspect Ratio |
Sound |
1.85:1 |
2.0 Mono/Stereo, 5.1 Surround |
Extras |
. |
Menus (English) |
. |
Chapters (21) |
. |
Trailers: Galaxy Railways (US), Degrassi,
Dragonball Z (US), Yu Yu Hakusho (US),
Baki the Grabbler (US) |
. |
Character Profiles |
. |
Q&A on Nostradamus |
 |
|
Captures |
|
Review |
I will attest that this is my first Funimation
title, and I can safely say I was left unimpressed
in the least, especially given the inflated retail
price. Of course, overpriced DVDs are nothing
new for Toho fans; in fact, they have been there
since the dawn of the format, with Criterion's
Seven
Samurai release, and have perpetuated
even to this day. However, one would hope that
companies realize that they need to at least warrant
the larger price tags with something to boast.
Be it supplemental content like Criterion, superior
video quality like (some) AnimEigo discs, or a
mixture of the two like Geneon's portfolio, something
should stand out. Unfortunately, nothing about
this release is particularly good. The better
aspects, like video and audio, are simply mediocre,
while the extra content is fairly meaningless.
|
Video: |
 |
Pretty sub-par quality video quality here,
and fairly disappointing given that this is a
2005 release. It would seem that Funimation went
to the trouble of including their own US version
of the film, with the altered title and credits,
along with the Japanese one. Unfortunately, it
would appear that they did some noticeable compression
on the two versions. Of the two, the Japanese
one fares much worse, with a larger degree of
artifacting. Both presentations look slightly
blurred as well, despite some heavy edge enhancement
on Funimation's part that has resulted in some
halos around objects.
Fortunately, other aspects of the disc are presented
much better, although there isn't much to gush
about with genuine praise. The colors, for example,
while not bad on this release could have done
with a slightly more lush array. The print used
in the transfer is thankfully in good shape with few scratches. Noise levels are also good with
what appears to be only minor grain, although
it's difficult to gauge with the level of pixilation.
Farewell to Nostradamus is presented
in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1.
|
Audio: |
 |
It's always disappointing to see companies
place tremendous care in the dubbed tracks, and
then seemingly slap on the original Japanese audio
as a afterthought. As is the case with Funmation's
release here. The two English dubbed tracks are
presented well, excluding the awful voice acting,
with a nice speaker distinction present in both
the 2.0 stereo and 5.1 surround. Furthermore,
there are no distortions to be heard in either
track. To Funmation's credit, the Japanese audio,
the third track on the disc, also fares well,
with dialogue being crystal clear. However, it's
only a mono presentation that was doubled to two
channel, so of course there is no speaker distinction,
and it's unfortunate that this wasn't given a
more lush multi-channel presentation like the
other tracks.
The audio can be accompanied by, removable, English
subtitles that correspond to the Japanese track
or the English dub.
|
Extras: |
 |
Nothing much of interest here. There are a
slew of trailers present, but all of them are
ones that Funimation made themselves instead of
going with the original Japanese ones. It's also
disappointing that none of these are of the other
Lupin features.
The other two extras are text based, with one
being a character biographies list and the second
being a Q&A on the life of the prophet Michael
Nostradamus, whose work is mentioned in this film
and will also be recognizable to Toho enthusiasts
for the 1974 film Prophecies
of Nostradamus (yes, I was just waiting
for an excuse to bring it up...). Both of these
extras are fairly lackluster though, with the
character bios being obvious information from
the film while the Nostradamus segment is information
that could easily have just been Googled.
|
Overview: |
 |
Bottom line, this is a pretty ho-hum effort
from Funimation. If one is interested in simply
seeing the film, then this release will more than
suffice, but it certainly isn't as pretty looking
or as content packed as it could have been, or
probably should have been given the $30 price
tag.
|
- Anthony Romero |
Buy
this DVD |
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