Blu-Ray Movie box set coming to Japan

Just saw on Filb.de mention of a new 'Pikachu the Movie Box' - similar to the DVD box set released a few years back, but this time including all the films up to the Zoroark movie on Blu-Ray as well as a disc including extras like some of the Pikachu shorts. The site notes that they are remastered versions, so probably doing the same as what happened with the first episode of the anime that aired a while back.

The box set is due for release on the 28th of November with the asking price of 38,640 Yen.

It's "remastered" in that it's an HD transfer of the movies. I don't think we're going to get the level of clean-up we got with the first episode.

Speaking of...that would make an excellent extra for this set, Media Factory.

I wonder why the third Pikachu short ("Pichu & Pikachu") is missing.

Also, here's Media Factory's site for both this Blu-Ray set and the DP DVD set.

Shame we can't do that here, because of the licensing issues with the first 5 movies (Warner Bros. and Miramax).

I'd love to get that... too bad it probably won't happen
I also noticed how it's missing one of the shorts - I wonder if there's a mistake or if it really is missing (can't see any reason to exclude this specific one)

hmm...would like to see the early gens/seasons remastered to blu-ray as well...
The movies aren't really a big deal for me, but why not remaster the eppys?? :?

The movies are probably in better shape than the TV episodes from the same era, so they probably don't need the same amount of restoration anyway.

Given that I already own four of these on Blu-Ray anyway, it's not really worth it to me (and I already spend enough importing CDs from Japan).

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Originally Posted by Dogasu

I wonder why the third Pikachu short ("Pichu & Pikachu") is missing.

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Originally Posted by Piplup

I also noticed how it's missing one of the shorts - I wonder if there's a mistake or if it really is missing (can't see any reason to exclude this specific one)

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It seems that ever since the ED singer and narrator, Noriko Sakai, was arrested and charged over drug possession, it's been banned in Japan.
It no longer airs on TV, while all the other shorts still air on Kids Station (the poster for Entei shown even has the logo removed); it's been redacted from the reissued rental version of the Entei DVD; and the repriced 2011 rereleases of all the movie DVDs have it redacted too.

So it seems that it's not a mistake, which is unfortunate.

Geez, I know they've called it "Premium", but Japan really lives in their own little world when it comes to pricing DVD and Blu-ray box sets.

Anyway, I'd be interested in knowing whether they intend on releasing these separately at some point, and whether the first 3 movies have the dub tracks on them like the DVDs do. I have a region-free player anyway, but were the Victini/Zekrom movies A locked or did they play B as well?

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Originally Posted by bluesun

It seems that ever since the ED singer and narrator, Noriko Sakai, was arrested and charged over drug possession, it's been banned in Japan.
It no longer airs on TV, while all the other shorts still air on Kids Station (the poster for Entei shown even has the logo removed); it's been redacted from the reissued rental version of the Entei DVD; and the repriced 2011 rereleases of all the movie DVDs have it redacted too.

So it seems that it's not a mistake, which is unfortunate.

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Wow, the Japanese are just crazy =| why every little thing has to mean for them OMG BAN IT ALL FOREVER AND PRETEND IT NEVER EXISTED!
First Porygon, then Plasma, now this........
It totally kills the whole purpose of this box set... without the third short movie it is not a complete movie box set, it was part of Movie 3 and that part is missing now, for the most ridiculous reason they could ever find =\
I don't care what any VA or singer that happened to take part in it did... it seriously should have no effects at all...

I can sort of understand why they took out the short since the people who run the anime don't want people thinking the Pokémon franchise technically "supports" a criminal by having one of her songs in a short and her narrating the whole short. So unless they could could of replaced her narration or have it removed completely along with the ending song, I can't really justify blaming them for not including this short.

It's still ridiculous... that thing was recorded long before that case... so now everything that VA did has to be removed from existence? like, wtf?... =\ that's an extremely exaggerated reaction and is simply ridiculous

Awesome news. I think the movies will look great, even if it's just an HD transfer. I'm excited to see Mewtwo's Counterattack (my favorite) in HD.

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Originally Posted by Thingamajig

Geez, I know they've called it "Premium", but Japan really lives in their own little world when it comes to pricing DVD and Blu-ray box sets.

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Ain't that the truth. That'll be the thing that keeps me from buying it. Hopefully it gets cheaper or individual releases, but for now I'll probably be going for some Super Sentai DVDs or Blu-Rays. Not as much material as this set, but also not as high a cost.

Now, for a new question: What is this about a remastered first episode? Was it a HD transfer? When was it shown? Thanks for any info.

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Originally Posted by monkeyjb1988

Now, for a new question: What is this about a remastered first episode? Was it a HD transfer? When was it shown? Thanks for any info.

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On the 1st April, Pokemon Smash! (a companion show to the anime in Japan that usually just shows upscales of old eps) showed the first episode remastered in HD from a new film scan.

Adding to that, the reason they even did an HD remaster of the first episode is because April 1st, 2012 was the 15th anniversary of the TV series' debut on TV-Tokyo (the first episode of the first series premiered on April 1st, 1997). It was part of a larger celebration of the series' decade and a half on the air.

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Originally Posted by TaiChiChasers

Shame we can't do that here, because of the licensing issues with the first 5 movies (Warner Bros. and Miramax).

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I wonder if it would be possible for TPCi to buy the rights to those movies so they could control all of the movies like they can in Japan?

I would love to have the movies on blu-ray, and so ar only Miramax has done it in the USA :(

Also, it would be cool if this japanese release had it to where you could change the audio to English so I could import them...