Neon Genesis Evangelion Platinum Volume 1 - Denkyu.Com
- Denkyu.Com
- Tcov
- 09/01/04
- click here
Eva Without a Cause, It's Going Platinum!
Written by tcov
Imagine a normal trip to Blockbuster Video or some other major DVD retailer and find a couple of normal guys grouped together talking about new movies and such. What are the odds that they may be discussing new anime? Rarely, I would guess. The only exceptions may be Ghost In The Shell, Spirited Away, Dragon Ball Z, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Neon Genesis Evangelion. I've personally overheard conversations in regards to the animes above.
Without a doubt, Evangelion has revived a crucial nerve in the anatomy of Japanese animation and has minimally dictated how anime functions. Evangelion has become popular in numerous countries and awareness continues to grow in those countries, whereas Evangelion has been dying in Japan.
ADV licensed and distributed Evangelion back in 1995-1996. Since then, the show defined itself to be one of the revolutions in anime in the United States. In 2000, the DVDs finally hit the shelves, but used the VHS masters for video source. There is a re-mastered version of volume 1, but I was never able to determine the physical differences between the cases of the regular DVD and the re-mastered DVD, so I didn't give ADV a sale that time. Regardless, this remastered re-release led me to believe that the word 'Evangelion' is a money-making toy. Anything Evangelion became needy and trendy with customers, so it would be in the best interest to ADV to sell as much Evangelion stuff as possible. Heck, it's possible ADV advertised Evangelion during the filming of One-Hour Photo starring Robin Williams.
It's 2004 and now we have Neon Genesis Evangelion: Platinum. Now do you believe me when I mentioned the popularity of Evangelion? I can't think of a dozen titles that had a 'Platinum', 'Extended' or 'Re-mastered' DVD re-release. So many suckers are going to buy these new 'Platinum' DVDs... okay, sorry, you're not suckers, you're tools icon_surprised.gif ... all kidding aside, ADV is going to make more and more money on Platinum and it didn't require much work.
I watched this Platinum DVD hoping there was going to be whooping improvements and loads of extras. To start off, the best of the extras include a textless OP and ED and a commentary with Matt Greenfield. Unimpressed with the extras, I watched the anime itself and I noticed some improvements. The video quality is 5 times crisper than from the original DVD. The video is still from a VHS master source, but you could totally tell the difference between the 2 DVDs. This DVD is also more surround-sound friendly. Hook up your speakers correctly and you will notice uniquely defined calls on scene (like a sound coming left to right, or a sound from only one speaker to enhance the reality of the scene). Compare the improved Platinum audio track to the center-speaker case with the original DVD.
There were no translation improvements.
So it was great to re-live the first part of Evangelion again, but should you buy a copy? Well, this silver-case DVD is known as the Platinum version. What will they call it if it were a gold case maybe... 5 years from now? An over exaggerated prediction, but the point is that ADV is milking Evangelion for all it's worth but won't put a ton of effort into making it totally fantastic (I think it needed more extras). Re-mastering is a tedious process, but it's very easy to do as long as you have the tools and know-how. It's work, but nowadays it's amateur work.
I'm happy with the original DVDs I already have. I watched Evangelion for its story and philosophical touch, and the video/audio wasn't that gawd-awful for me to avoid it completely. But if you're a rich otaku and don't mind shelling out dough, then Evangelion Platinum will look good on your shelf.
Posted on Wednesday, September 01, 2004 (Archive on Friday, October 01, 2004)