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Region 4 Winners and Losers

Region 4 Winners and Losers

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Explanatory Notes
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Title Best
Kiki's Delivery Service (Majo no Takkyubin) (Studio Ghibli Collection)R4

    The Region 1 version of this disc was released some time back, and I bought it then. It's a Walt Disney Home Entertainment release. It's a two disc edition, so you'd think it would be much richer than this Region 4 single disc. Strangely, it isn't.

    The second disc of the Region 1 version has nothing on it but the full-length storyboards. They have included both the English and Japanese soundtracks with the storyboards, but there are no subtitles (which makes the Japanese soundtrack less attractive unless you understand Japanese). And you can't flick between the movie and the storyboards, because they are on different discs. So I consider the storyboards on the second disc of the R1 release as considerably less value than the ones on the R4.

    The Region 4 disc is missing:

  • John Lasseter introduction (0:51)
  • Behind the Microphone featurette (5:01): Kirsten Dunst, Phil Hartman, Matthew Lawrence, and Janeane Garofalo
  • 5.1 English soundtrack (it has a 2.0 soundtrack)
  • trailers for Lizzie McGuire Movie, Finding Nemo, Jungle Book 2, Stitch! the Movie, Bionicle: Mask of Light

    The Region 1 disc is missing:

  • subtitles on storyboards
  • reversible cover slick
  • trailers for Princess Mononoke, Grave of the Fireflies

    The R1 English soundtrack may be formatted as 5.1, but I didn't notice any particular activity from the subwoofer or surrounds — I wouldn't choose the R1 on that basis.

    The featurette is mildly interesting, but it's not a decision-maker. And John Lasseter's introduction says next to nothing.

    As described above, the storyboards on the R4 are better value.

    The R1 transfer is quite good, but I think the R4 is very slightly better — have a look at 47:21, for example, where the R1 is a bit soft. All in all, I recommend the Region 4 version over the R1.