## Ado SPECIAL LIVE Shinzou *Adosolute Cinema Release #1* I first heard Usseewa within a week or two of its release back in 2020 and have been a diehard fan of Ado practically ever since, even if I've mostly kept that myself over the years. Now, to celebrate the fifth anniversary (to the minute, no less, if the timing works out properly) of that iconic track’s release, the now legendary Shinzou concert held on March 27 and 28, 2024 (the latter having been recorded) has been given the proper treatment for the first time in English. ### Video:  2024 Japanese Blu-ray (purchased and ripped by me) (1080p MPEG-4 AVC, 29917 kbps) Given how demanding this is with its insane visuals, fast editing, bold colors, nighttime photography and thick noise and grain, I was fully prepared for a disaster encode. Thankfully, like the other qooop encoded and authored concerts (so far all of them besides Campanella), the compression is insanely impressive, especially in an era where Japanese Blu-ray encodes are at an all time low in terms of quality (there appears to be little to no low pass filtering applied!). While it’s not 100% flawless, unless Dynit or Fidelity in Motion were to take a crack at it, or a 4K UHD were to be released (which a visually stunning production like this is very deserving of, especially with a proper HDR grade), then it’s as close to perfect as can be for a modern JP BD and the best we'll get. (Anyone who intends to re-encode this at a smaller file size while retaining good quality will run into a big challenge, lest they not manually zone much of it) The stream on Japanese service U-Next is [quite terrible and watermarked,](https://slow.pics/c/ZjVSVcWi) so it's worthless. For some reason the rip of it on nyaa has part of the MV for Show at the start, which is quite bizarre. Additionally, the credits sequence was redone for Blu-ray/cinema, so this is the definitive version. I recommend watching with MPV as the media player of choice, and strongly suggest the [SoM config](https://github.com/JySzE/SoM-MPV-Config) for an excellent, optimized build. MPV's high quality video renderer and audio engine make it the best option. ### Audio: Japanese Dolby Atmos (48 kHz, 24-bit; 8723 kbps; DR 13) Japanese FLAC 2.0 (Atmos Downmix for Higher Dynamic Range) (48 kHz, 24-bit; 1635 kbps; DR 13) Japanese FLAC 2.0 (Blu-ray stereo) (48 kHz, 24-bit; 1706 kbps; DR 8) If you have a good audio setup, never mind an Atmos capable setup, crank up the volume to 11, because the Atmos mix for Shinzou is breathtaking. If anyone saw it during its theatrical run, you’d know just how powerful and immersive of a mix this is. You truly *feel* as if you’re there at the stadium; the dynamic range and sense of space is massive and enveloping. To watch this, I highly suggest using MPV as a video player, especially the aforementioned SoM config, particularly because of its audio engine and ability to downmix surround audio to stereo better than any other player if you lack a dedicated surround sound setup. The Atmos track downmixed is still a beast and a joy to listen to. The Blu-ray stereo mix has really bad dynamic range compression (much like the digital, non-Vinyl Record releases of Ado’s albums), so I made a custom stereo downmix to preserve said dynamic range. I still think that MPV can downmix better than this track, but if you’re using TV/monitor speakers or maybe even a cheap soundbar, this should be a good option that might sound better than how your system downmixes the Atmos mix. Both stereo tracks included, so why not experiment and see which you prefer? ### Subtitles: English Subtitles (Full) English Subtitles (Dialogue only) The English subtitles here were a labor of love. Rather than just port existing (and quite bad) translations, I went through each song, lyric-by-lyric and heavily retranslated, rewrote and edited virtually every individual lyric to make sure each song was accurately translated with respect to the original Japanese lyrics, retained proper flow in English with smart adaptation choices, and was not super wordy to murder CPS. There are no Japanese subtitles or captions, so the nearly half hour of dialogue had to be mostly translated and referenced by ear, thankfully with some additional resources to help out. I've included two subtitle tracks: one with everything (lyrics and dialogue) and the other with just the dialogue translated in case you’d rather watch without the songs subtitled. hydes graciously looked over the timings and formatting I did and heavily retimed all the dialogue in addition to doing some different, far superior formatting in places, so the technical aspects should be polished enough. (Please note that some shots have lyrics shifted to the top of the screen to not block the main focus of composition, adhering to live action subtitling standards by labels like Criterion) To my knowledge, nothing of this scale has ever been attempted before with a J-Pop concert in the English language: what few attempts at subbing them exist usually involve the speeches only or maybe porting over existing translations of the music, as opposed to a full on revision in every category of epic proportions. This isn’t even the first time this specific concert has been subtitled, but none of the attempts thus far are as comprehensive as this. ### Extras: The CDs included with the Collector’s Edition are included here: they retain the same audio mastering as the dynamic range compressed Blu-ray stereo mix, but in 44.1 kHz, 16-bit. The Blu-ray menu is included. The main extra is the original Usseewa music video produced by Wooma, released the same day as the track itself five years ago. Sourced from Apple Music, this is the best looking version around, albeit with some frame rate issues (the MV was originally produced at 20 fps and Apple forced it into a 23.976 fps container); still, given the alternatives (YouTube and Niconico, it's strangely not on Tidal), the [superior encoding from Apple](https://slow.pics/c/YOVXhhWJ) was my preference. It's possible at least one of the sources has shifted chroma, but given how low quality they all are at the end of the day, it's hard to tell which is "correct." (If you want to fix it yourself, remove all the repeated frames when checked against the 20 fps original) English subtitles are included and retain the same translation as what was used in the concert. ### What's next? Well, this is merely the start of something I've thought about doing for a long time: subtitling every single Ado concert on home video (even including the audio commentaries for Campanella and Mars). Each one has its own stylistic qualities and vibes, with Ado herself giving radically different performances in each: no two are exactly the same, so even with tons of setlist overlapping, the variety in performances and the speeches make them all worth watching. I also plan on subtitling every music video, because if I've done the concerts, it's easy enough to port over the translations of the songs themselves. (For the three or four people who care, this does not mean I've stopped working on anime subtitles, but rather, this is a big passion project to go alongside the work I primarily do for others) Which one is next? I'm not exactly sure. Perhaps making a Wish or observing the Profile of Mona Lisa may provide clues to the current dilemma. Regardless, I hope this passion project is enjoyed by all fans interested. While ideally I'd just release subtitles only to ensure you bought the Blu-ray in support, that wouldn't go over well, so if anything, I hope these releases encourage you to buy the concerts on Blu-ray (including a certain one just released mere days ago and is in transit as I write this!). #### Special Thanks: hydes: Retiming, formatting, QC, uploading and mental support RedDeadEncode: Glancing over the Film Red TLs anon: Ripping and providing the Apple Music Usseewa MV in addition to Weebly9, ZetaRebel and Hikari for mental support