[Oni]

Supposedly a bunch of effort went into the remaster, and frames were manually corrected. I recall seeing the original Bluray and there is a lot of "cel dust" as they call it. Typical grainy artifacting that you would expect on older animations. Hoping someone releases a copy of the remaster, as it only premiered in Japanese cinemas.

As described by Watanabe, Cowboy Bebop: The Movie was produced during the "analog-era" of theatrical animation, in which numerous cels were often "layered" on top of one another to achieve a certain level of artistry and immersion. "I was [very] particular about the layout of the film, so I was conscious of creating depth. Like, there is one world, and beyond that window is another world," Watanabe explained.

Because of Watanabe's approach, the 4K remaster team was presented with a unique challenge when working on the film. "...In some works, the amount of cel dust becomes very noticeable. [Cowboy Bebop: The Movie], in particular, has a lot of layered cells, so there was a risk that scratches and shadows would be visible," he stated.

To give the new version of the movie its characteristic polish, Watanabe gave the okay for an extensive amount of detail erasure during the clean-up and finishing process. "I just said, 'Please erase everything. I'm counting on you,' and left (laughs)," he recalled lightheartedly. "Bandai Namco Filmworks and the post-production team did an incredible job, spending months manually erasing imperfections from each shot, finishing it to a magnificent quality." The process was notably carried out 100% manually, with no AI involved.