Sailor Moon Season 1 Set Bluray Review
3rd January 2018 at 6:12 pm
Dear Chibi,
Ready for the first review of 2018?
Sailor Moon season 1 is finally out on Bluray in HD format for the first time in Australia. It uses the newly created High Definition masters from Japan which is super exciting~ but what about the DVD sets fans have been collecting so far?
Madman will continue to release SuperS and Sailor Stars on DVD, but will be using the Japanese HD upscales instead of the European masters. I actually really liked the European masters used for seasons 1-3, so I’m hoping these will be just as good.
Comparing the limited edition DVD next to the Bluray boxset, the packaging is basically identical (just different sizes)
Box cover
The set contains all 46 episodes over 5 discs. There’s no labels on the cover to distinguish which box is set 1 and which is set 2.
The DVD version doesn’t show Zoisite or Kunzite. Compare here
As you can see, the booklets are exactly the same apart from the size (The DVD booklet is a lot bigger)
There is only one slight difference in the artwork, with the Bluray now featuring all 5 girls instead of 3.
The menu is finally animated (YAY) which features footage of the girls doing their attacks.
Here are some screenshot comparisons to show the difference in video quality. The top image is from the Bluray vs the European masters from the DVDs:
Overall I’m pretty happy with the video quality as you can see a noticeable difference in the colours. I’ve always been a fan of the DVD packaging so to see them used for the Bluray is a plus.
I hope you found this review helpful! What are your thoughts on the new releases? Will you be collecting the DVDs or the Bluray? Comment below and let me know. If you’re interested in owning a copy, you can grab it here.
You can also check out my previous Sailor Moon DVD reviews of Madman’s releases here:
Sailor Moon Part 1 DVD
Sailor Moon Part 2 DVD
Sailor Moon R Part 1 DVD Limited Edition
Sailor Moon R Part 2 DVD
Sailor Moon R The Movie~ The Promise of the Rose
Sailor Moon S Part 1 DVD Limited Edition
Sailor Moon S Part 2 DVD
That cover is so much nicer than ours ;_;
Thank you for doing this review. I own madman’s special edition dvd version already. So torn on whether or not to get the blu ray version now. It’s the convenience of disc region too.
hmm yeah it’s a bit of dilemma, isn’t it?
So is it unedited episodes, including ones Did cut out completely? How did you find the voice acting?
Really interested in knowing as have held off getting blu ray copies.
These are all uncut and use Viz Medias new English dub. It also contains the original Japanese audio with English subtitles.
Would love to know if they kept the music the same as the originals, both in English and especially in Japanese.
It’s the same audio track. Viz Media used the voiceless audio tracks that Toei gave them. The only change is the songs are translated into an English version. I find it weird that they don’t translate the word for “manga”… it’s a comic book!!!!
Thanks! This makes me so happy to hear. Will be buying these asap now.
Funny that the same European masters were used by Viz and Toei. Obviously Toei have the software, and the know-how to not completely destroy it. Viz unnecessarily increased colour depth, contrasts and attacked it with noise removal and edge enhancement, and the result – a pile of crap riddled with digital anomalies galore . If Toei has done the best with what they have, then that’s okay and I will definitely continue to buy the Madman sets. I hope Viz finish dubbing the 3 movies soon so we can get a beautiful movie box set with that glorious new scan from the original negatives :3
I’m glad we dodged the bullet with the Australian version ^^” Did you get the DVD versions?
I did buy the DVDs, coz we weren’t sure of a blu-ray edition and the European SD ver looked great. I just sold my DVD sets though to make room for the blu-ray :3
Didn’t bother buying the R movie, coz I knew a beautiful HD one is not far away :3
Oh nice one!
hi, i looking on google of sailor moon collections i found your site and this post:
http://dearchibi.com/2013/02/17/my-sailor-moon-corner/
can you send me a scan of the sailor star VCD cover, or just the “Sailor Star” logo scan in HQ? i dint found a HQ quality on web :'(
Oh wow I never noticed the logo was in English, never even seen this before :O
Unfortunately I don’t have a scanner, sorry!
I understand, so could you take a picture of better quality with a good angle?
Here you go, enjoy!
http://i68.tinypic.com/axzoyo.jpg
Japanese Blueray (same to Australian Madman copy) uses Cue Tech’s “FORS MASTER PROCESS” technology to support high-quality up-conversion and high-quality audio encoding. After that, re-correction (remastering correction) of film dust and scratches took places.
About FORS”Faithful Original Signal” you can read below (use google translate for that if you need)
https://www.fors-qtec.jp/concept/
https://www.phileweb.com/interview/article/200911/26/39.html
You can see it is really advanced that’s why the results are good and I suspect the NHK broadcast was the same, they were saying remastered but I do not see any difference in the quality.
Hi there, and Happy New Year. Thanks for this review, it’s really thoughtful and helpful. I’m an American fan and I’ve purchased all the DVD limited releases from Madman to date (just waiting semi-patiently for Stars part 2). I recently decided to invest in a multi-region blu ray player and now I just can’t help myself and am after the blu ray releases from Madman as well. R and S were easy enough to cover by, but this first season is seemingly no where to be found. I’ve got my eyes on what I assume are the usual places like Jb, Might ape, Sanity, and ebay, but I was wondering if you might have some insight into places the great folk of Australia go to sell their second hand items?
Thanks again for your reviews and opinions. Be well!
Hi Andrew,
happy New Year~ and thanks for your kind comments :)
I’m not sure where people would sell their second hand stuff… I’m assuming places like gumtree.com.au or Facebook Marketplace? Good luck on your search :)
You have to be very persistant. I found the first season in BR (region b) after months looking for it on eBay. Best way not to miss it it to save a search on eBay and check 2 times a days. I was very lucky at the end to finally have it.
The SuperS movie was also a pain in the ass to find in BR, found it by chance on gumtree from someone who was selling a lot of BR anime I just wrote her and ask is she had by any chance the movie in BR that I was looking still nearly a year and I was LUCKY :)