Over the last week, some allegations have arisen on our forums regarding potential audio/visual issues with Anime Limited’s Your Name Blu-ray release, but due to the MCM weekend it’s been difficult to verify exactly what’s been going on.

Late last week, Anime UK News forum member Mangaranga obtained an early copy of the Your Name Deluxe Edition from Anime Limited’s stall at MCM, and posted in a Blu-ray.com thread about some issues he noticed with the master. He provided this screenshot comparison, and described:

The gamma is wrong, there’s a lot of blocking, compression artifacts and a hell of a lot of visual noise going on in the encode. I’m pretty sure it’s not a problem with the master Madman were working from as there’s no consistency between the issues in the BD and DVD. (e.g. BD1 vs DVD1 and BD2 vs DVD2. Gamma is correct, some parts of scenes appear to show more quality loss on the BD and the DVD has a lot less visual noise.)

Upon comparison, the issue seemed to be shared between both the UK and AU releases, and it was quickly confirmed that both releases were mastered by Madman, an Australian anime distributor. Even more strangely, similar issues appeared with the Your Name Blu-ray in Hong Kong, which was not mastered by Madman.

As the entire team was exhibiting at MCM London, it’s quite reasonably taken until now for Anime Limited’s promised investigation to come to fruition. This morning, their CEO Andrew Partridge posted the following statement regarding the issues on our forums:

Hi folks! Following up and having unloaded the van I have finally been able to check the BD of Your Name out again for myself. Here’s the findings: Audio: We’ve looked at the disc and while the audio point seems to just be perception based on the fact the JP audio all comes from one source and the international releases will not by and large. While reviewers have noted on the BD the video (aka UK-Anime.net most recently) you will note nobody across DVD or BD reviewing has flagged audio issues either which lends to this point. Video: While certainly not defective, I would be adding this to the Defective / disappointing disc thread under “disappointing” as to us this is a special project and the quality is while completely fine for casual viewers (of which a large number of buyers will fall under) as a videophile along with long time fan of Mr Shinkai’s work, it isn’t what I’m completely happy with (good enough to make commercial release, not good enough for me to be proud of). This happens sometimes especially when QC was done quickly and usually companies would leave it be. What are we doing about it: We’re making sure the Blu-Ray master is re-authored now to use a better video encode for the next print run that is done. Will you be announcing a formal replacement scheme? No official replacement scheme will be posted, simply put as the disc does pass muster from a industry standpoint and the majority of viewers (in this case the mass market) experience won’t be impacted. But I am in the first run and really upset! We totally understand and as a fan who’s supported us through thick and thin what we are willing to do is replace your disc when we do the reprint the disc if you’re really upset by the quality. All you have to do is email shop.uk@alltheanime.comwith a subject line of YOUR NAME – BLU-RAY and write us a (polite and short) email saying what your issue with the Blu-Ray is then we’ll replace it with a fresh master (coming late this year most likely). Hope this clarifies and again shows our dedication to all of you ?. I could go into detail on this frontier but figure best keep it short and sweet! Very best, Andrew

Hopefully, this brings some closure to the issue – while plenty of ink has been spilled in our forums and in the wider community about how or why the problems came to be, it seems that Anime Limited have struck the best compromise possible – offer to replace the discs for anyone who is worried about the issues, but don’t trigger a prohibitively expensive and potentially crippling recall over an issue a lot of regular viewers won’t notice. Above all, though, Your Name is such a good movie that it’s still worth the minor extra effort, even if if you’re one of the lucky few with a system good enough to notice the issues.