If anyone is interested in having the new Japanese Bluray sets, consider buying the new Australian bluray releases. These blurays use the same exact HD upscale video as the Japanese blurays.

BENEFITS IN COLLECTING THE AUSTRALIAN SETS

Bonus perks of collecting the Australian releases is that they have the new English dub included, as well as English subtitles. The sets are also full series sets at about $80-$100, vs. the Japanese half sets. So about a 2/3 decrease overall in price.

EXTRAS – NOT MUCH

Not much for extras on the Australian release. Opening and ending textless credits in same poor quality, a behind the scenes segment of the Viz cast and Australian trailers. Set includes 2 bluray cases contained in one series box. 5 discs total. In one of the bluray cases you will find a small booklet with the usual new art in every release. No episode guide included and no cast interviews in booklet. I do remember the Viz sets having more extras included. So, if extras and booklets are your thing, you won’t find much here. The bluray menus are nothing special. Just transformation music with everyone’s attacks. Same menu on every disc. No dvd copy is included. Blurays only.

VIDEO QUALITY – VERY GOOD

I remember when I bought the Viz blurays and I was so disappointed in the video quality of them that I immediately resold my copy. The Australian Bluray transfer is leaps and bounds above the Viz sets in video quality in my opinion. I also have the Japanese dvds and I can definitely say in my opinion the blurays are much much clearer and crisp than the region 2 dvds. As Adam has stated, you can definitely, tell that the video has been doctored, but the difference is, unlike Viz’s transfer, this bluray transfer is actually GOOD to look at. As far as I can see there is absolutely no grain [unlike on the R2 dvds] and no ghosting or encoding errors [unlike on the Viz sets]

THE ONE CATCH – REGION B

The one major catch to collecting these is that they are Region B only [Europe, Middle East, Africa, Australia], so unless you have a region B or region free bluray player, these will unfortunately not be view-able.

OVERALL THOUGHTS

Overall, I am EXTREMELY HAPPY with my purchase and plan to collect all the Australian bluray releases. I hope this has been helpful.

For Sailor Moon or other anime I couldn’t tell you how the effects were completed.

Some series on the other hand are shot on straight up video cameras. It gives it a game show or soap opera look. This is what the live action series used. Looks find on a TV but not on a computer screen and you can see interlacing artifacts during effects sequences even on a TV.

I recall seeing some very high-resolution production “stills” for the digital-ink-and-paint series Cybersix that TMS had put up on their website, and it was pretty obvious they really weren’t meant to be viewed in such detail – and Cybersix was drawn in a far more realistic style than Sailor Moon was.

(I’m actually kind of annoyed at how saturated the colours are in some of the newer Sailor Moon re-releases, as I’d always taken the washed-out pastel look of the original broadcasts to be an artistic choice rather than a production fault. Not every Toei series looked like that – the 90s Yu-Gi-Oh cartoon used a pallette of eye-searingly intense neons.)

Would Sailor Moon sell that much better if they were able to go back to the film source to make a better HD version? I’m not convinced.

Yeah… I love the packaging of this, but the video quality would need a substantial MAKE… UP!!! for me to crack open my wallet. Until then, thanks for the review!