Unfortunately, a price has to be paid, and in this case it is detail, especially in the darker scenes. The characters, machinery and settings all blend in well, there is nothing that jars or stands out of the frame and the film looks very good indeed. The palette is muted, reflecting the grime and dirt of a polluted Industrial Victorian cityscape, and there are scenes where the film almost becomes sepia toned. It’s very much a filmic look, complete with a couple of spots of minor print damage that gives it a greater realism. The film on the feature disc has distinct grain, is dimmer and even a little dull.

Thankfully Blu-ray fans won’t have to worry about that, as Manga are debuting the film in high definition in its complete form, and you get all of the Collector’s Edition on disc extra features as well.įrom what I have seen of the film in the supplementary materials, detailed as it is, the CG stands out, and the characters and backgrounds don’t mesh well. And for the life of me, I couldn’t understand how cutting out twenty minutes would leave a coherent film. I can understand why, as I managed to snag one of Sony’s Collector’s Edition Director’s Cut releases on DVD, an expensive and exclusive box full of gorgeous stuff, and also the film in dub and sub format running to over 2 hours. Previously the film had a standard DVD release from Sony with the 100 minute dub only theatrical version which wasn’t received well the version that most anime fans probably saw. It’s a double treat as well, as we’re getting the director’s cut on Blu-ray.

Introduction We are in for a treat! The UK is the first English speaking territory to get Steamboy on Blu-ray, Katsuhiro (Akira) Otomo’s steampunk family friendly epic action adventure that took ten years to bring to screen.

Steamboy anime revieswes