The frames seem to be blurring a bit at 0:05, as well as a few other points. I'm not sure if that's due to the source and if there's anything that can be done to fix it, but I wanted to bring it up anyways

Sabotower said:
The frames seem to be blurring a bit at 0:05, as well as a few other points. I'm not sure if that's due to the source and if there's anything that can be done to fix it, but I wanted to bring it up anyways

Gainax destroyed the original masters, so a true remaster of this show is impossible.

dicarj18 said:
Gainax destroyed the original masters, so a true remaster of this show is impossible.

Is there a reason why they did that?

Sabotower said:
The frames seem to be blurring a bit at 0:05, as well as a few other points. I'm not sure if that's due to the source and if there's anything that can be done to fix it, but I wanted to bring it up anyways

The masters weren't destroyed as another poster says. The animation cels used to photograph it were, but that's a different thing altogether.

The series was shot on 16mm film and then edited on tape (and sometimes physically with scissors, no joke) to save time and money, which has made it a death sentence like a huge number of 90s anime. Essentially, all the 16mm film shot would have to be found, manually re-edited back to how it is, and any digital effects like text and the like have to be recreated in HD overlaid on-top of the 16mm film in matching font, speed, etc, and the few 100% digital shots (like a few in the OP) would have to be upscaled from SD to HD. Evangelion was in a similar situation, but outside of the digital timer in episode 9, there weren't many digital elements to recreate, so it was easier to redo in HD. For Kare Kano, it would take forever. This isn't even a problem limited to just 90s anime; the recent 4K restoration of the French cult classic film "The Brotherhood of the Wolf" had the same issue, where no original production material was kept so everything had to be re-edited back together from over 500 reels of film negative... and that's a film from 2001! Goes to show that it's a widespread issue no matter where you are in the world (lack of documentation and element preservation).

The frame blurring you noticed at the 5 second mark is frame blending. Long story short, JP telecine operators had this braindead idea that blending 24 fps film footage would look better when broadcast via analog broadcasts on a CRT. They were wrong then, and now because of their stupidity, many a 90s series is stuck in frame blended hell, so an IVTC to 23.976 fps is basically impossible from the current SD masters, so 30i VFR it will have to stay. Such a shame.

Sorry for the longest comment in booru history, but I figured I might as well explain the issue in as much detail as possible.