It's a shame that the German TV broadcast had the vhs in-between there and there was a HUGE loss of quality as a result...
Still if someone that has access to, both, the Japanese widescreen Laserdisc and the German TV widescreen broadcast, there's a possibility for a project to remove the hardcoded subtitles. The result wouldn't be perfect, but I guess it could be done if one wants the best *possible* widescreen edition.