OVERALL: Draw

The Hong Kong release has a Japanese DTS-ES track, feature length storyboards and an exclusive featurette, but lacks the 40-minute documentary.
The Scandinavian releases have a Japanese DTS track, full storyboards with an exclusive Finnish language commentary, and the making-of documentary.
The French Édition Collector has a Japanese DTS 5.1 track, full storyboards, the making-of documentary, and some exclusive extras.
The US release has the making-of documentary, some English language extras and an exclusive "The Art of Spirited Away" featurette, but only has storyboards for the first 10 minutes.
The UK release has the making-of documentary, some English language extras, full storyboards but lacks the above featurette.
The German Special Edition has the making-of documentary, some exclusive featurettes but lacks the storyboards feature.
__

Notes about the "Reddish Tint":
Some releases (mainly R2 Japanese, and R3 HK) has more of "Reddish Tint" present throughout the transfer, for reasons that so far are not fully explained. Disney and Ghibli insisted that the addition of a "Red Tint" to the DVDs was done on purpose in order to improve the quality of the video on plasma screens with a 9300k color temperature, but many people however believed that the tint was actually a production error. Do note, that to many people the "Reddish Tint" isn't a big problem, and many of the screenshots found on the internet seem to exaggerate the degree of the tint - e.g. R1, R2 French/UK, and R4 releases are not completely free of this "Reddish Tint", but they do contain a better colour balance. It has been said, that the colour balance is still not right, and that they have fixed the "Reddish Tint" problem by reducing the red levels and increasing the green and blue levels. So the transfers still have a minor "Reddish Tint" to them, but this is nothing like as obvious as on the R2 Japanese & R3 releases.

Picture comparisons are available on Whiggles and through the DVD Beaver link below:

CUTS:

• R1 America- Buena Vista Home Entertainment - No Cuts (124:24 NTSC).
• R2 Denmark- Scanbox - No cuts (124:54 NTSC->PAL).
• R2 Finland- Pan Vision/ Cinema Mondo - No Cuts (124:31 NTSC->PAL).
• R2 Édition Collector France- Buena Vista Home Entertainment - No Cuts (124:26 NTSC->PAL)
• R2 Édition Prestige France- Buena Vista Home Entertainment - No Cuts (124:26 NTSC->PAL).
• R2 Germany- Universum Film - No Cuts (125:12 PAL).
• R2 Special Edition Germany- Universum Film - No Cuts (125:17 PAL).
• R2 Holland- Paradiso Home Entertainment - No cuts.
• R2 Japan- Buena Vista Home Entertainment - No cuts (~124min NTSC).
• R2 Collector's Edition Spain- Jonu Media - No Cuts (124:30 NTSC-PAL).
• R2 United Kingdom- Optimum Releasing - Yes - Not to The Film but to the "Making Of" Extra, the BBFC asked for 7secs of Cuts/Substitutions - (119:30 - PAL in 25 fps).
• R3 Collector's Edition Hong Kong- Intercontinental Video Ltd (IVL) - No Cuts (124:22 NTSC).
• R3 South Korea- Daewon - No Cuts.
• R3 Taiwan- Buena Vista Home Entertainment - No Cuts.
• R4 Australia- Madman Entertainment - No Cuts (124:23 NTSC-PAL).
• R4 Limited Edition Australia- Madman Entertainment - No Cuts (124:23 NTSC->PAL).
• R5 Russia- CP Digital - No Cuts.

Do you own a release not listed? Then please visit our forums and let us know!

Comparison added by Hans_Kristian_Senneseth on 12/12/02
Comparison last updated by James-Masaki_Ryan on 28/08/21

UPDATE LOG:

13/02/11 : Addition of the Japanese edition.
28/08/21: Added Geramny x2, Holland, Spain.