The R2 Japanese is better than the R1, but also quite a bit more expensive.
It's worth getting if you're a fan.
I did.

From Ultimatedisney.com:

What crappy art.

I hope Totoro is better.

Check page 2.

That is indeed crappy. Even the font looks cheap.

Wow... I hope they change that cover. It's amazing to think that it's being released in the same wave as those other two covers. Of course, I'll be getting them all no matter what the covers look like, but it'd be nice if Disney spent more than 5 minutes of effort on the packaging.

crappy cover art indeed. they should go with them waiting for the cat bus. that's one of my favorite images from any movie. but anyways, i'm glad i can finally toss the fox release.

Looks like a 5-minute Photoshop job.

Any more news on these releases?

Ok, Totoro is now out. And everyone is complaining about the voice talent on the dub. (Dakota Fanning etc.)

My question - rather than the Fox DVD, is the 'original' English dub on the Japanese versions?

Yes

I like the new dub. I think the Fannings have great chemistry. I sort of think people are complaining because complaining about Dakota Fanning is the new complaining about Haley Joel Osmet.

I caught this dub for Totoro, on one of the satellite channels last month, it was actually pretty good.

Pixar supervised Howl's Moving Castle according to the supplements and the voice talent seemed well chosen and implemented, does this hold true for all the disney releases? Seeing Pixar involvement was a big plus, they all seemed big fans of Miyazaki's works... Miyazaki brought a HUGE prop as a gift to John Lassater for the screening.

John Lasseter only surpervised the English dubs for Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle. Most of the other dubs were created before Spirited Away's dub and before Lasseter got involved in them. Porco Rosso, Kiki's Delivery Service, Castle in the Sky, Nausicaä, and Princess Mononoke were all made a good while beforehand. I'm not sure when the rest of the dubs were made, but there hasn't been mention of Lasseter's involvement in any of them, which I'd assume they'd play up like they have with the Spirited Away and Howl releases.

the English dub for Totoro was actually done twice - the one that's on the VHS Fox release and the new 2005 dub with the Fanning sisters. I actually prefer the former of the two. (The older English dub is also on the Japanese R2 edition of Totoro)

yes, i wholeheartedly agree on the Fox dub of Totoro being better of the two! though i usually watch my anime in Japanese, the Fox release forced me to watch the movie in English. comparing it with the newer dub, i actually prefer the older one (Mei was so much cuter sounding on the first!), and now i have to hold on to that release!

Rumor has it that the DVD of Howl's suffers from terrible edge enhancement. Can anyone comfirm that?

Edit: It's definately there (http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=20513) more proof that Disney can't put out a DVD with decent Picture quality to save themselves.

I guess that's why I don't do reviews... looked great to me, even on a large projector setup!

Slightly off topic, but I'd love to got hold of one of those large plush Totoro dolls...the big cuddly ones, to go with my new DVD. Any recomendations as to who isn't outraegeously expensive?

Same here. I guess you need a six-foot plasma HDTV before you can notice. Or be among the true DVD leet who bitched about the 1/10th of a second green pixel on their Titanic disk.



A Google search might help. But I don't think there is such a thing as an affordable one.

For those who doubt me, I've added additional screen caps to my review.



The problem is not subtle.

I'm not downing you Josh Z, I'm sure the problem is there, and appreciate your reviews. I guess I just don't have the critical eye, as I said

thanks for the comparison of R1 and R3, JoshZ. wow, that's pretty bad halo'ing on the R1 pic.

Of course when you zoom in like that, any image will degrade.

I don't want to diss Josh Z's evaluation either, but yeah, when these are in motion and I'm into the movie, I just don't see stuff like this. I've only got a 16x9 30" tube right now, but things like this just don't bother me as much.