Studio Ghibli Responds to Spirited Away Controversy

Since its release on the 19th, the Japanese DVD version of director Hayao Miyazaki’s latest film Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away), has been the source of tremendous controversy in both Japan and internationally. The film itself included in the DVD version has a noticeable reddish tint to the image that it not present in the trailers included on the DVD and was not present in the film’s theatrical print. This red tone is present in both the official Japanese and Korean DVD versions of the movie, leading to massive worldwide speculation that the DVD was incorrectly mastered. Nausicaa.net hosts a sample screenshot from the DVD in which the reddish tint is most obvious in the character faces which are a brownish color instead of bright pink. This side by side comparison screenshot reveals an obvious difference, but there has been some debate over the quality of this particular DVD screenshot and its accuracy in representing the actual DVD image quality.

The Mainichi Interactive newspaper reports that according to Studio Ghibli the trailers and supplemental material on the DVD use the original theatrical print for their video source while the home video version of the feature itself has been remastered for optimum performance on high end liquid crystal and plasma display televisions. Studio Ghibli’s official stance is that the DVD is not defective and will not be recalled or remastered to eliminate the red tint. According to the newspaper article, Ghibli spokesmen suggest that viewers who are unhappy with the image quality may be able to recreate the film’s theatrical appearance by adjusting their television’s color settings.

Source: Anime News Network