Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Cowboy Bebop is my favorite anime and I'm ecstatic to finally have it on Blu Ray. This set isn't perfect, but it is the best this show is ever going to look. I'd like to address the negative reviews that have started to come in. Their complaints seem to be three-fold: - The show isn't really HD because it isn't widescreen. - The show isn't really HD because it is upscaled, and doesn't look better than the DVDs. - The sound is somehow worse than before. All of these claims are absolutely wrong. Firstly, the show was originally made in 4:3. That means that converting it to widescreen would require cropping, which would mean both loss of fidelity and loss of parts of the image. If this had happened, I would consider this transfer utterly ruined. Movies and shows should always be presented in their original aspect ratio, and cropping is unacceptable. They are still very much HD by definition. Secondly, only certain elements of the image are upscaled from SD: the computer animated ones. Anything that contains CG planets or spaceships is noticeably upscaled. While unfortunate, these elements were CREATED in SD, so no HD elements have ever existed for them. It's just something we're always going to have to live with when it comes to this show. That said, the entire rest of the show, all hand-drawn animation, is indeed in native HD and looks significantly better than before. If you can't see the difference, I don't know how to help you. I also think both the Japanese and English 5.1 mixes are excellent. If you find them inferior, I think you need to make some adjustments to you sound system. It might sound worse when played back in stereo, I don't know. It's unfortunate that stereo mixes weren't also included on the set, but the surround mixes are EXCELLENT. If you already own the DVDs, it might not be worth the upgrade for you, but if you think it's an inferior version you are wrong.