Yaji and Kita: The Midnight Pilgrims - Japanese DVD

English title: Yaji and Kita: The Midnight Pilgrims
Japanese title: Mayonaka no Yaji-san Kita-san (真夜中の弥次さん喜多さん)

The movie's official website: http://yajikita.com/
DVD info on the official website: http://yajikita.com/dvd.html

Release date: Oct. 7, 2005
Region code: 2
Publisher: Asmik

There are 2 (or maybe 3) versions of DVD of this movie released in Japan.
The 2-disc Limited Edition in plastic "lunch box" (cat.# ACBD-10301)

the 1-disc edition in standard keepcase (ACBD-10302)

and the 2-disc edition in papaer box (ACBD-10303).

Contents of the 1-disc edition is identical the 1st disc of the 2-disc edition.

Initially, the publisher claimed when the limited plastic box run out, they will be replaced with paper box. So customers "should hurry to get the plastic box."

However, it seems plastic box didn't sell well as it can be easily found in many online stores even now, often with good discount.
I got my copy of "lunch box" edition from one of such stores, and that's what I'm going to discuss here.

[ADDED Nov. 03, 2012: Blu-ray Disc Special Edition was released on Sep. 5, 2012:


It appears all of the extras of 2-disc DVD have been ported over to the BD edition.

English subtitles are also available (likely for the main feature only, I guess).
The packaging is standard BD case only.
]


The Packaging:

First, let's take a look at the "lunch box" itself and what's inside.

When you open the box, you see rice and an umeboshi (pickled plum).
That's a printed sheet, of course.

There are 2 more sheets like that (drug pills and mushroom - if you saw the movie you know what they mean):

The reverse side of those sheets:

Under those sheets you'll find 2 separate keepcases:

Back of the cases:

The disc labels:

There's also a trifold leaflet,
which has chapter index, cast & crew list, writer/director Kankurô Kudô bio:

Disc 1: The Movie

Single-sided, Dual-layered
Running time: 124 mins
Video: 16:9 Anamorphic widescreen

Audio:

• Japanese Dolby Digital 5.1 SR
• Japanese DTS 5.1 SR

Subtitles:

• Japanese
• English
• Off

English subtitles look like this:

Supplements:

• Audio commentary by Kankurô Kudô et al. (more on this later)
• Trailers & TV spots

Note that English subtitles are only available for the movie itself, not for commentary, and menus.

Audio commentary is conducted in an interesting style that I haven't seen in other DVDs.
It's divided into 5 parts. Writer/director Kankurô Kudô is the host throughout,
and for each part different actors join him.
This gives a "rush" feeling to the commentary because the actors know they have limited time to speak. As a result, there are virtually no silence and dull moment.
Conveniently, there's a separate menu for audio commentary.


Disc 2: Special features

(Note that NO English subtitles are available on Disc 2)

- Making-of:
This section has 4 separate featurettes, which focus on the shooting (37 mins), music (18 mins), VFX/CGI (6 mins), and costumes (4 mins) respectively.

- Deleted scenes (15 mins):
9 segments, including the complete version of "the movie within the movie".

- Storyboards (6 mins):
2 versions of the storyboards, one by Kankurô Kudô and another by Kiyoshi Okuyama, are presented with the actual scenes from the movie at once.

- Still gallery of artwork, costumes, props, etc.

- Speeches in theatres:

1. Preview event upon completion (5 mins)

2. Opening day at Cinema Rise (Shibuya, Tokyo) (8 mins)

3. Opening day at Joy Cinema (Shinjuku, Tokyo) (4 mins)

4. Kankurô Kudô's radio show "Kick the Kankurô" live broadcast from Cinema Sunshine (Ikebukuro, Tokyo) (8 mins)

- Kankurô Kudô's talk show: 3 sessions (13 mins each).

- Zazen Boys "Tanuki" music video Yaji-Kita version (3 mins).

- A video entitled Kankurô Kudô and Kotobuki Shiriagari go Tôkaidô (34 mins):

This is basically a video journal of 2-day road trip on Tôkaidô by Kankurô Kudô and Kotobuki Shiriagari, the writer/director and the author of the original manga/novel respectively.
I find it so boring.

- A short video movie written & directed by Kotobuki Shiriagari entitled "Riyaru Boueitai" (roughly "The Defense Team of Reality") (13 mins).

This is an intentionally silly parody of sentai and other tokusatsu TV shows.

The premise is, while Kitahachi went to Ise looking for "reality" for him, the remaining members of the team must protect people from illusions such as "you can be an MLB player if you try hard".

I don't find it very funny, but seeing Susumu Kurobe (from the original "Ultraman") as the chief of the team in silly outfit is a little treat.
Shichinosuke Nakamura also appears as Kitahach briefly.




R1 US version:


Soundtrack CD:


The manga by Kotobuki Shiriagari::


The novel by Kotobuki Shiriagari::


The movie is also based on Shiriagari's manga "Yaji-Kita in Deep" but as of this writing the 1st volume of the series seems to be OOP.


Official book on the movie:


There are many other products related to the movie.
I may add them to my Amazon Assosiate Store.

[Jun. 13, 2015: Modified product links according to the changes made by Amazon.com]

Ga-nime

The term "Ga-nime"(画ニメ) is an amalgam of Japanese words "ga" ('画', picture, drawing) and "anime"('アニメ', animation).
It's the name of the project initiated by a publisher called Gentosha (幻冬舎) and Toei Animation in 2006.

Here's the project's official website (in Japanese only).

It focuses on the quality of (still) "pictures".
Many of them have very limited movements, often just a series of still images, which gives a feel of slide show or picture book with sound.

Some criticize this style is nothing new. Maybe. But I think it's pointless. New or not, this is a different approach to animation from the mainstream style, and I appreciate the variety of styles.

Some (many?) may find them boring, too artistic in a self-indulgent and pretentious way.
I agree with that to some extent, but I find some of them fascinating.

I posted some of the web trailers on YouTube, with English subtitles to promote ga-nime to raise international recognition, hoping some foreign company pick them up for initernational release.

One of the reasons I did this is those DVDs of ga-nime are so expensive even by Japanese standards. And most of them are only 20-30 minutes long.

(Some time ago Toei Animation had them on their streaming website with very reasonable price, but it was restricted to Japanese residents.)

And of course, they don't have English subtitles.

Here are said trailers. I hope you enjoy.

(Please read the descriptions of the videos.for the details of each title.)

• "H.P. Lovecraft's The Dunwich Horror and Other Stories" 『H・P・ラヴクラフトの ダニッチ・ホラー その他の物語』
• "Fantascope - tylostoma"
• "Gendai Kibunroku: Kaii Monogatari" 『現代畸聞録 怪異物語』
• "La Grenadière" 『ざくろ屋敷』

Links to these 4 titles:

For more Ga-nime titles, please visit my Amazon associate store

Columbo - Japanese BD Boxset

Columbo Complete Blu-ray Box



Publisher: Geneon Universal
Release date: Dec. 2, 2011
Cat# GNXF-1245
Region code: ALL
35 discs (dual-layer & single-layer mixed)
Total running time: 5984 mins
AR: 4:3 / partially 16:9 (more on this later)

Audio:

• English Mono (partially 2.0)
• Japanese Mono (partially 2.0)

Subtitles:

• Japanese
• English
• Japanese for dubbs

All 69 episodes of Columbo in one "cigar case" packaging (like 2009 UK DVD boxset)
The world's first BD release of Columbo.
New HD master.

Extras:        

• The NBC Mystery Movie opening (In Japan, the title music is known as Theme of Columbo because it's not used in other series)
• Shorter 75 mins version of Etude in Black (reportedly the screenwriters' preferred version)
• Music-and-effects only track on selected episodes
• 44-page booklet (mainly episode guide).
• For initial press only: Reproduction of Japanese dubb script of  Prescription: Murder (124 pages)

For Japanese fans, this may be the definitive Columbo set,
as it contains all episodes (including the ones after 1989 which were not even released on DVD in Japan),
and multiple Japanese dub tracks featuring different voice cast (very important for Japanese fans).

However, it seems there is a controversy among fans about AR of later episodes which is 16:9, not 4:3.
I thought all episodes were shot and aired in 4:3. If they cropped the picture it's very disappointing.

I haven't purchased it myself, though.



UK DVD sets:

Breakfast at Tiffany's - 50th Anniversary Edition Japanese BD

Japanese version of Breakfast at Tiffany's - 50th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray comes with some goodies which seem to be exclusive to it.

• a soundtrack CD (12 tracks)
• a miniature reproduction of shooting script
• a set of 3 postcards

and packaged in a stylish slipcase to boot.

Maybe they are not something to get excited, but not bad IMO.
Especially soundtrack CD is welcome because it's been OOP in Japan.

As far as I can tell from the catalogue info on Paramount Japan's official product's page
disc extras are identical to the US counterpart, but language options are not:

Audio:
English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio
English Restored 2.0 Mono
Japanese 5.1 SR
Russian 5.1 SR
Polish 2.0 Mono

Audio commentary:
English  2.0 Stereo

Subtitles:
Japanese, English, Thai, Korean, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hindi, Indonesian, Hungarian, Polish, Turkish, Greek, Portugese, Bulgarian, Malay, Romanian, Icelandic, Arabic, Hebrew, Czech, Slovak, Croat, Serbian, Slovene, Russian, Ukrainian, Estonian, Lithuanian, Lettish

Subtitles for audio commentary:
English, Japanese, Korean

Region code: A

(so says Amazon JP, but I haven't confirmed it yet.)

This Japanese version is issued as a limited edition.

(There's also BD-only edition, though.)

Regional restriction on download/streaming

Side-Line Music Magazine had an article titled "CD-format to be abandoned by major labels by the end of 2012" as of Oct. 23.

While this may be what many people anticipated (except for actual schedule), I was a little surprised. I thought it would be much later.

But, this makes me worry - not about the end of CD itself, but about the future of  download/streaming.

I don't worry too much about the audio quality because, when download/streaming becomes the ONLY way to purchase music, the demand for higher quality is inevitable.

Actually, after the failure of SACD/DVD-A,download/streaming will be better way to introduce HD audio to main stream audience than, say, BD-audio.

Rather, I see a possible problem in regional restriction.

For example, HDtracks.com offers many HD music but they are limited to the customers with USA addresses, so I can't purchase them.

Likewise, Japanese website e-onkyo offers HD music only to the customers with Japanese addresses.

Same goes for movie websites, such as Hulu.

Perhaps 1/3 of my music/movie disc collection are imports.

Regional coding of DVD was not a very big problem because there were several ways to get around.

But when download/streaming block customers by their addresses,

I don't see any "legal" way to cope with it.

This means I can no longer import music and movie when physical media is gone, and that's a BIG problem for me.

I want free market.