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Astro Boy (1980)- Remastered on AnimeLab

Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2015 11:31 am
by Little Brown Fox
Yeah, so, idk how many of you have heard, but, there's this site called AnimeLab that streams anime for free. I'm actually not sure exactly how legit they are, but they have a Youtube channel, as well as a Facebook page (not that any of that proves anything), and I'm sort of inclined to think that they're genuine.

Now then. They apparently have the 1980's Astro Boy up on there (I saw a "trailer" for it on Youtube, which was just the English dub's opening sequence); it's the English dub, near as I can tell, and thus it's mostly missing an episode in the sequence- the count said 51 episodes, when there should've been 52. Most of us know why that is, exactly. (I'm dirt at explaining things, though, so if anybody asks, could somebody else do the honors?)

The "trailer", while obnoxious, looked to be beautifully restored. I could almost tolerate the English dub's Astro's incessant whining if only I could look at how pretty it looks now.

There's just one teeny, tiny problem: AnimeLab is only available in Australia and New Zealand.

Oh, you can go to the website, sure. But you can't actually watch anything- believe me, I tried; I tried to find a way around whatever regional restrictions were keeping me from my prize (which I won't say much about, other than it was an extension for Chrome built for this purpose), but to no avail. In any case, I'd like to watch it legitimately, if at all possible. (Not that I have too many qualms about doing otherwise, if necessary, but official releases, when they are both available and accessible, always come first.)

The comments on the trailer mentioned something along the lines of a premium membership, which idk about; but I'm sure in reason that it's free, now. I think so, anyway. Fat lot of good it does me, but eh.

By the by, has anyone heard anything about a digital restoration of the 80's series? I feel like I might have heard of that somewhere, a long(ish) time ago. I've more recently heard of a restoration of the 60's series released on DVD (again, in Australia), from like, a couple of years ago or so. (But it's not the sub I've been wanting, so eh...) What little I saw, and the video thumbnails on their website, looked pretty darn spiffy. It's too bad (for me, anyway) that it's only the English dub, so far as I can tell. Unless they have the sub for premium members... In which case I am still screwed.

Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2015 4:55 pm
by Shiyonasan
Can confirm after researching: AnimeLab is a legit company. The bottom of their main website says "brought to you by Madman Entertainment", who is a major anime company over in Australia. I mainly know about Madman Entertainment from the Dragon Ball fandom.

Also, their Facebook page is verified (the blue check mark by their name), meaning that Facebook can confirm that their page is legit.

If I'm not mistaken, I believe that AnimeLab the only legal place on the internet to watch the English version of the '80s Astro Boy anime now. To my knowledge, you can't find streaming videos of the Japanese version online anymore which is pretty sad. :(

"Little Brown Fox" wrote:By the by, has anyone heard anything about a digital restoration of the 80's series? I feel like I might have heard of that somewhere, a long(ish) time ago. I've more recently heard of a restoration of the 60's series released on DVD (again, in Australia), from like, a couple of years ago or so. (But it's not the sub I've been wanting, so eh...) What little I saw, and the video thumbnails on their website, looked pretty darn spiffy. It's too bad (for me, anyway) that it's only the English dub, so far as I can tell. Unless they have the sub for premium members... In which case I am still screwed.


Are you thinking of this?

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/reviews/Astroboy-Complete-Series/5266

If so, it does look like it's restored (I don't own it so I can't confirm). This set has always looked like the best American release of any of the Astro Boy series to me with everything that's offered on that set, including a Japanese audio track. I need to buy that set sometime.

Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2015 8:41 pm
by F-Man
Yeah the US DVD set featured a massive restoration of the show done from Japan. It's so crisp and perfect the only thing that could've been left to improve is digitally remove sprinkles of hair here and there, although the simple fact we can see them so well is a testament to how good the picture quality is.

Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2015 9:45 pm
by Tetsuwan Penguin
"Shiyonasan" wrote:Can confirm after researching: AnimeLab is a legit company. The bottom of their main website says "brought to you by Madman Entertainment", who is a major anime company over in Australia. I mainly know about Madman Entertainment from the Dragon Ball fandom.

Also, their Facebook page is verified (the blue check mark by their name), meaning that Facebook can confirm that their page is legit.

If I'm not mistaken, I believe that AnimeLab the only legal place on the internet to watch the English version of the '80s Astro Boy anime now. To my knowledge, you can't find streaming videos of the Japanese version online anymore which is pretty sad. :(

[QUOTE=Little Brown Fox;236656]By the by, has anyone heard anything about a digital restoration of the 80's series? I feel like I might have heard of that somewhere, a long(ish) time ago. I've more recently heard of a restoration of the 60's series released on DVD (again, in Australia), from like, a couple of years ago or so. (But it's not the sub I've been wanting, so eh...) What little I saw, and the video thumbnails on their website, looked pretty darn spiffy. It's too bad (for me, anyway) that it's only the English dub, so far as I can tell. Unless they have the sub for premium members... In which case I am still screwed.


Are you thinking of this?

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/reviews/Astroboy-Complete-Series/5266

If so, it does look like it's restored (I don't own it so I can't confirm). This set has always looked like the best American release of any of the Astro Boy series to me with everything that's offered on that set, including a Japanese audio track. I need to buy that set sometime.[/QUOTE]

I may be wrong, but I think this set has been out of print for a while. I wanted to buy the set and found that it was actually the most expensive (considering the number of disks and playing time) of all three of the series. Eventually I lucked out and found a used copy on Ebay that was in like new condition for about $25. And yes the video quality is top notch.

BTW, although this set is the edited English language version, the disks do have BOTH the Japanese and English sound tracks, and if you select the Japanese soundtrack the few episodes about Uran have the alternate ending with her theme song. The English sound track omits that as they didn't compose an English language version of that song.

Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2015 5:06 pm
by Little Brown Fox
Hm, shame, that. The restoration on Anime Lab seems to be much more extensive- I can't see any imperfections, which I think is just great. (I'm pretty sure I've seen some of that Manga DVD set around, through ways and means, and it's definitely not the same at all.)

I was talking about something else; I could have sworn I'd heard about another restored release, just not American. In fact, it might have actually been Madman Entertainment- which I found out was responsible for this joint after I already posted this. It's a crying shame that they aren't available in the US. Granted, the English dub gets on my nerves; but the restoration was so pretty... I'll have to find it and link it sometime, unless somebody else wants to do the honors? I was looking up Astro Boy 1980 on Youtube, or some such. Manga used to have a thing on there about the missing scenes, or something; I'm pretty sure that the scenes with young Atlas were actually dubbed, just never released. The only thing that probably wasn't touched was the death of Tobio, for obvious (if regrettable) reasons.

Man, I wish a restoration could be done on the Japanese version. Although when Viki had it, it was at least out there. :T Hm.

Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2015 5:30 pm
by F-Man
I'm thinking the DVDs you saw were probably the Australian release, which are pre-restoration. That Anime Lab trailer looks just like the US DVDs to me. Or maybe it's a downscale of the new Blu-rays, which would give it a slight edge, but I don't think it is.

Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2015 7:13 pm
by Tetsuwan Penguin
The 1980 version is out on BD?

Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2016 10:09 pm
by jayrath
I hadn't heard about this, and I don't know what AnimeLab is working from, but have the original first-generation elements of one of the episodes. (Dubbed original, that is; what we worked from.)

Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2016 12:46 am
by CommanderEVE
Set a proxy to one of two of those countries and view it.

Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2016 2:46 am
by Little Brown Fox
Idk anything about proxies. I do have a thing I can use, but it didn't work, so...