why you funimation!!!!! I soooooooooo disappointed you let me down. I give up on funi for a long long time.

I'm all for expanding the pitiful anime blu-ray market in the US, and FUNi is generally a great company, but releasing all these blu-ray upscales strikes me as annoyingly counter-productive to that and just makes it harder for me to invest in one without confirming that it's worth getting the blu-ray over the DVD first, which isn't always easy. I can't help but feel it's a little disrespectful to the consumer. Personally, I'm wary of any and all of their BD releases that haven't even been released in Japan, not that they *always* release non-upscales, but it helps to know!

As such, unlike with Ghost in the Shell S.A.C. (which, on a slightly unrelated note, I finally got around to watching in blu-ray the past week and it looked fairly great, though the recently released 2nd Gig looks doubly fantastic), I'm far more inclined to trust these screenshots as the reality as it doesn't seem to have a Japan release at all nor does FUNi have the greatest track history for this sort of thing. And, well, they just don't look very great, and it doesn't seem the rest of the anime would benefit either. A shame.

I also have a sneaking suspicion FUNi is just trying to release some of their more popular series, upscaled or not, rather than actually looking for something originally created in HD. Seeing anime like Ouran appear on the update list recently doesn't help said suspicion.

toph: The screenshots are taken perfectly.

Good point toph

btw, be careful with any screenshots...
As can be seen from "Ghost in the Shell S.A.C.'s first screenshots" ABG post, not everyone can do them properly (i.e. directly from video) - in GITS SAC case the actual BD picture detail level and quality are superior to any of screenshots posted here. Let's just wait and see for new screenshots of Sumarai Champloo, or better I'd d/l one episode of bdrip when it's available and see with my own eyes.

Upscaled or not it looks bad. I have placed my order for Basilisk I really hope this is not the end result. I like to help these companies but not if they are into ripping customers off.