Innocence on Blu-ray

My copy of "Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence" on Blu-ray disc finally arrived from Japan yesterday and you can bet I ran straight to my room with utter excitement. The experience was better than I had anticipated. And as expected, there is a marked difference in audio and visual quality in the Blu-ray version as compared to the original DVD release. I felt as if I were thrown back into the world of "Innocence," watching it for first time since it came out in 2004. The opening sequence really showed off the quality Blu-ray technology has to offer. It's hard to explain it in greater detail than that, but all I can say is that my mouth was agape with astonishment for most of the movie.

The BD comes with the original movie release as well as the international release version. The movie is thankfully left in its original Japanse language, with subtitles available in Japanese, Korean, Chinese, English, and French. The Making Of, featurettes, and trailers are some of the extras included. Unfortunately, none of the extras come with any subtitles. The only thing lacking, with the exception of the absence of subtitles in the extras, was its plain packaging — one disc and nothing else. I don't know if it's a matter of costs of production and time constraints, but here's hoping that'll change with the wave of BD anime releases to come. Thus far, the one-disc packaging has been consistent for all BD releases, if I'm not mistaken. Be that as it may, "Innocence" on Blu-ray will give you a ride you won't forget. Be wary though as region coding has been shifted and does not necessarily match DVD region coding. But this is great news for U.S. fans as U.S. and Japan finally share the same code.