Hot take: I doubted 4K remasters of old anime, then I watched one from 1989

I spent years thinking 4K remasters were just cash grabs, especially for shows made before digital animation. Then I picked up a 1989 OVA on Blu-ray last week and the cel detail was insane, like seeing the paint layers for the first time. But I still think some studios overdo the noise reduction and it kills the original texture. Does anyone else feel like the remaster quality depends more on the company than the era of the show? What's the one release that flipped your opinion either way?

2 comments

2 Comments

gray3144d agoMost Upvoted

Watching paint layers in 4K is cool for a minute, but it's still just an old tape scanned real hard. Some of those noise reduction jobs turn everything into waxy plastic, sure, but who's really losing sleep over grain on a 35 year old cartoon? It's a nice bonus, not some life changing event.

ross.kim4d ago

Those DVDs already have the grain baked into the master, so 4K is just upscaling a lie.