The first original work by the dream team, Satou Jun'ichi and Itou Ikuko, is back in a DVD box form. Content-wise, the only new addition is the audio commentaries for the OVA episodes by Satou Jun'ichi, Itou Ikuko, and Konaka Chiaki. However, some of the OVA episodes are remastered. What!? Only some of them? Yup. Only episodes 1, 2, 3, and 6 are truly remastered. Episodes 4 and 5 are no better, and possibly even worse than the original release. And unless you consider re-encoding, none of the TV-series episodes are remastered.
Before going further, I should mention that it does also come with a new box and Jeff-kun plush, although I believe these are first-pressing only items. I guess it's a Beanie Baby (TM) type plush. 16-page full color booklet isn't too bad, either.
Back to technical, remastered OVA episodes definitely have much more detail than the original, but someone at the controls was overzealous with the saturation knob, making everything look unnaturally oversaturated. Still, the added detail is welcome considering the high production values of the series. The non-remastered OVA episodes are afflicted with excessive contrast enhancement, causing loss of shadow detail and additional cross color distortion artifacts. And finally, the TV-series episodes look more-or-less identical to the original except the new encoding is partially progressive.
Audio commentaries are somewhat interesting, but overall, this is a very disappointing release, considering the cost of the set, and the historical importance of this series, especially the OVA.
The fact that the animation (other than the 3D portion) doesn't look dated at all, despite the fact that it's over 10 years old, speaks volumes for the series. A lot of the lighting effects required, well, lighting effects, literally. Nowadays, it's just some computer tweak. Even so, all those effects look very modern, again showing off the high production value of the time. It's really too bad that the re-release isn't of better quality. I guess the love for the quality animation has gone away from a lot of the old timers. Mr. Jun'ichi, sir, are you listening? ARIA (original series since I've not seen the later series) animation is shameful!
Disclaimer: I did not watch through all of the TV-series episodes again. I actually don't care for the TV-series. I think its existence actually taints the greatness of the OVA series.
Think about how the wings coloration had to be animated without using computer tools.
For some reason, this particular cut is not remastered in any of the episodes.
From one of the non-remastered episodes. Note lack of shadow detail on the rock, and additional rainbows and dot crawlies around Nanaka and Sae.
