Description: The action-packed adventures of the powerful superhero Ultraman are offered for fans in an exciting 30th Anniversary collection. This special edition contains episodes 1 through 4 of the original television series, uncut and remastered. Thrill to the exploits of Ultraman, as he defends the Earth from deadly monsters and alien invaders.
Very Acceptable for the Price Considering the lack of mainstream availability for this series, I found the $45 price to be satisfactory. It is not crystal clear perfect video reproduction, but well within the expectations of the price range. Packaging and presentation exceeded my expectations. If you are looking for a stroll down memory lane (it is always much cheesier than you remembered as a kid), this is an affordable blast from the past. I give it 5 stars because the price fits the product. You get what you pay for, which is pretty good bang for the buck.
Novarose's Ultraman DVD, and Novarose--NOT SO ROSY It's true that this set is probably as good a set of the dubbed version as there is out there absent remastering from the source and a commercial release, which does not seem to be forthcoming. However, with all due respect to the considered opinions of a gentleman from Belgium, things aren't so rosy, and the "the best available" ain't saying much.
VIDEO:
Lots of artifacting (that's when there's no real data in a section of the program and normal scenery is replaced by digital blocks that look sort of like the mosaic effect that they use to cover people's naughty bits on TV)
Lots of wash-out (that's when the colors are badly faded from a print)
Hiccups (like a skip but it's transient--often together with artifacting)
I had a friend who's a graduate student in film and something of an expert in digital video replication look at this and he came to the same conclusion as another reviewer. THIS IS A DVD COPY OF A VCD COPY OF A LOW-QUALITY VHS EDITION OF THIS SERIES, AT BEST.
AUDIO:
NOT SO GOOD. Static crackling is nearly as loud as the dialogue almost as often as not, sometimes characters sound like they're at the bottom of a well.
LEGALITY:
Very, very doubtful. There is no assertion of rights on anything I bought save what they poorly color photocopied off the packaging of the original Japanese release they were pirating. On their website they also sell DVDs that are CLEARLY in violation of the copyrights of Toho, Daiei, Tsuburaya Communications, and no doubt a bunch of other companies, things like pirated copies of recent box sets from Japan that they can't POSSIBLY have the rights to, because Toho never releases rights to the American market until the Japanese have had stuff for years so as to avoid competition from imported American DVDs (DVD prices in Japan are 2-3 times what they are here). If you care about these issues and feel that the heirs of Eiji Tsuburaya have a right to be paid for their father's legacy, avoid these people like the PLAGUE.
SERVICE:
WRETCHED. Here's some words about Novarose themselves. They ship their product in unpadded envelopes, as a result of which one disc arrived damaged and unplayable. I had a very prickly interaction with their customer service people concerning this and a few other issues and I would not recommend doing business with them if you have any other option available to you. It's probably not worth the aggravation; these people have seem to no interest in making you happy once your money's in their hot little hands.
A legitimate copy will come out eventually; amazon has tons of good Japanese SciFi--try Ultraman Tiga or THE MYSTERIANS or the '90s Gamera films instead; they're fantastic and legitimate, too!
Seller NovaRose has best quality Ultraman DVDs I've seen I purchased this 4 DVD set of all 39 episodes & I think its the best! And I've seen many. This seller has an excellent video & audio quality set, and it's a legal copy. For a nearly 40 year old TV series made on ancient Japanese analog equipment, I was really happy about the great quality. Sure, there was about 8-10 seconds of hiccups spread out over 16 hours of viewing, but I would be a jerk to care about those seconds. I was pleasantly surprised when the set came with extra bonus materials as well - like rare deleted footage restored, though, only about 4 minutes worth so I can see why it wasn't advertised, but nonetheless, I loved that feature. I also loved the bonus feature of the Japanese credits for Ultraman, because I had never seen it before (just the American dub version). And it comes with the Bonus of episode 1 of Ultraman Ace - seeing all 5 different Ultras together was a blast, and made me feel better knowing that Ultraman was still alive. :) Each DVD had a motion interactive menu, so about 15 seconds of each episode was played -- great feature to help me jump and skip round. The Customer Service of the Seller was also impeccable - Grade A+ all the way. I will be buying all my Ultraman titles from this seller. A great additon to the Amazon family.
Seller is probably selling pirate copies Seller novarosellc is probably selling pirate copies of Ultraman TV series in DVD (dubbed from some ancient old VHS tapes). You will see a lot of this types of products in eBay.
If you are Ultraman fans, priate copies might be better than none. Just be aware. Ask the seller before you buy.
In Japan the real things are slowly coming up, but they are in Japanese. Quality of image is of cause very good. If sellers can pirate that version and combine the English tracks from the old tapes, that would be something (excellent image but poor audio).
Pirate Vendor Warning I ordered this through Amazon from "Nova Rose LLC" and got **Pirated** copies of the DVD. So the $45 cheap price isn't a legal copy. It looks to be a VHS transfer to DVD-R media, there are "pause" icons at the begining of some episodes and digital error due to the transfer. Amazon did refund my money and I hadn't expected to see this company on their site again, but they're still here. I'd just like to warn folks that want a legal "manufactured" copy to not order from Nova Rose llc. Hopefully the other vendors that have it for $79 will be legit manufactured versions of the episodes.
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