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[logo]: https://i.imgur.com/saGcWRL.png ""
#### Big thanks to the following people for helping with this release:
*ghsushsu123 / sus123*, for helping with sign TS
*SomethingRandom*, for helping with sign TS
Join the [Discord!](https://discord.gg/PMrccmpYTu) We're looking for translation checkers and some typesetters for the Ghibli project.
### Memories - Enthusiast's Collected Edition
*The best picture quality, Dual audio & Refined subtitles + Extras*
This is my kind of "hybrid remux" of the 1995 anthology movie Memories. I've used the recently released US BD for the first episode, "Magnetic Rose", and the 2014 JP BD for both the second episode, "Stink Bomb", as well as the third episode, "Cannon Fodder". *So, why US BD for Magnetic Rose?* As you might know, Magnetic Rose has about 4 minutes worth of digital animation shots throughout the movie, which don't look very good by today's standards. The resolution is clearly very low and they're full of artifacts. For the new US BD, these shots have been restored with an upscaling technology called "AstroRes". I've no idea how it works, but the results look very nice, especially when you take into consideration that [the original resolution of the digital animation might've been around as low as 640x360.](https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?p=18952279&highlight=astrores#post18952279) To better match the film footage, they also colour corrected and added some grain to the restored shots. I know upscaled stuff isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I see the AstroRes'd cuts here as way more seamless and easily digestible than the unrestored versions.
I don't think there exists a non-windowboxed master of this movie. The US BD has been zoomed in by the looks of it (less headache for us, yay), and the JP BD is windowboxed. The solution to the windowboxing on the JP BD is to zoom in on the picture in your player. If you're familiar with my [Redline upload](https://nyaa.si/view/1339636), this is the same situation, but with different zoom values. Stink Bomb and Cannon fodder are different sizes in terms of the viewable video, so the required zoom amount also varies between the two. To get Stink Bomb to full screen in MPV and its variants, zoom in by 0.90. To get Cannon Fodder to full screen, zoom in by 0.99. In MPC-HC and its variants, Stink Bomb needs a [Pan & Scan zoom](https://i.imgur.com/EiqHzyD.png) of 1.0640 and Cannon Fodder needs one of 1.0720. Zooming in always means losing some sharpness in the picture, but unless a new master is made, this is the only way to comfortably view these films. All the encodes found on torrent sites have been zoomed in on by cropping the image. This is basically the same but done without encoding anything.
#### Comparions (5):
| Magnetic Rose | Stink Bomb | Cannon Fodder |
| ------------- |-------------| -----|
|[USBD, 2008, 2014 JPBD](https://slow.pics/c/Zks5FP3h)|[USBD, 2008, 2014 JPBD](https://slow.pics/c/e7FoLRDu) |[USBD, 2008, 2014 JP BD](https://slow.pics/c/4daWEnEH) |
|[USBD vs ADC, Afro](https://slow.pics/c/vzqDcpCa)|[2014 JPBD vs ADC, Afro](https://slow.pics/c/OEzLFnA8) |[2014 JPBD vs ADC, Afro](https://slow.pics/c/7m0t9GLf) |
Additional comparisons between the AstroRes'd shots and the unrestored versions in Magnetic Rose:
I was originally going to use the 2008 JP release for Stink Bomb and Cannon Fodder, but after finding out about the 2014 release and comparing the two, I found the 2014 one to be superior with slightly more detail and less blotchy grain. The encodes look worse but don't take up as much space. DAC's video has been degrained so it looks quite different compared to everything else. Something for everyone I guess.
All the audio for each episode has been taken from the US BD. It had [less noise reduction than both of the JP releases](https://slow.pics/c/L9JeVTW9) and no upsampled tracks like the [96kHz version of the 5.1 mix on the 2014 JP release.](https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Memories-High-Spec-Edition-Blu-ray/94381/) The US BD also has a brand new English dub, and this might be the first time I thoroughly enjoyed an English dub of an anime. It is leagues above the shlock dubs most anime get. I highly recommend checking it out, even if you don't usually watch dubs. As for the tracks themselves, we have the dub in both 2.0ch and 5.1ch mixes and the original Japanese in both 2.0 and 5.1. I tend to generally watch the movie with the 5.1ch mix, but the other tracks are also there for a reason. I recommend sampling all of them and seeing which one works the best for you.
The subtitles are what I put the most "work" into here. The US BD has a new translation, which I have retimed all lines for, done typesetting when it was worth it, and edited in a few places by mostly taking lines from the older translation where I thought they read a bit better. The PGS subs on the BD were pretty poorly timed: lots of bleeds, no lead in on a lot of lines, flickering lines. Should be a more pleasant viewing experience now. Of the three episodes, only Stink Bomb had signs worth typesetting. I'm still no expert, but I'd say they blend in better now. One of the signs I took from Afro's release, deemed it was nice looking enough, and only added motion tracking to it. If you do not like the modifications I've done, I've included ToishY's subtitles as well, which use the old translation and don't have any modified signs.
Let me know if you find anything wrong with the subs, audio or video. I went through everything a couple of times and fixed as much as I could, so you shouldn't come across any huge issues. But, this being my first release of this calibre, there're bound to be things I overlooked. I'll happily do a v2 if there's something that merits it.
We also have two nice extras! A half-hour long short documentary on Memories from the time of its release, which includes interviews with Katsuhiro Otomo (Cannon Fodder), Koji Morimoto (Magnetic Rose), and Tensai Okamura (Stink Bomb). And the other one is a full Cannon Fodder storyboard comparison video. Someone actually went through the trouble of animating Otomo's storyboards to match the movement of the final film. People are crazy.
### Specifics of this release:
Video:
1. JP BD* Remux (1920x1080, 23.976fps) *Magnetic Rose is US BD
Audio:
1. Japanese 2.0 FLAC (USBD)
2. Japanese 5.1 FLAC (USBD) (default)
3. English 2.0 FLAC (USBD)
4. English 5.1 FLAC (USBD)
Subtitles:
1. Signs [hydes] *Stink Bomb only
2. English (new translation) [hydes] (ass) (default)
3. English (old translation) [ToishY] (ass)
Extras:
1. Special Video Preview (720x480, 29.970fps interlaced, eng subs) 29min
2. Cannon Fodder - Animated Storyboards Comparison (1920x1080, 23.976fps, eng subs) 22min
| Magnetic Rose [MediaInfo](https://pastebin.com/raw/4t2Ah94V) | Stink Bomb [MediaInfo](https://pastebin.com/raw/GRVC4naF) | Cannon Fodder [MediaInfo](https://pastebin.com/raw/JLp0a64X) |
| ------------- |-------------| -----|
![][logo1] ![][logo2] ![][logo3]
[logo1]: https://i.imgur.com/ldXuGDv.png ""
[logo2]: https://i.imgur.com/aRl89hz.png ""
[logo3]: https://i.imgur.com/odZSYRY.png ""
[Full-sized bitrate graphs](https://imgur.com/a/e5Rorrf)
*- hydes*